Out and About: Beaminster
Updated: 1 day ago
This is the first in a new series suggested by Paul Coggins, Poundbury resident and CAofP volunteer, highlighting the remarkable places within reach of our home.
Beaminster, the nearby small market town in the folds of West Dorset, was bypassed twice by the forces that shaped the modern world, first by the Romans, whose road from Dorchester to Exeter took a more southerly route and left Beaminster untouched, and then by the railway, which never came. What history's great modernising forces bypassed, they also preserved.
Beaminster today is one of the most beautiful and unspoiled small towns in Dorset. The buildings glow with the warm golden colour of Ham Stone, quarried near Yeovil, and the streets still carry names like Shadrack Street, Hogshill Street, and St Mary Well Street. If you go, take time to wander down the roads like Clay Lane and Fleet Street. It doesn't take long, but the experience is memorable.
The town sits in a natural bowl, enclosed by hills on every side. Two rivers have their origins nearby: the River Brit, which rises on the southern slopes of Toller Down and meanders through Bridport before meeting the sea at West Bay, and the River Axe, which rises in Chedington Woods and flows forty miles through Somerset and Devon to reach the sea at Seaton.
The encircling hills gave the town its character but also its isolation. With Horn Hill blocking trade to the north, Beaminster had no connection to Crewkerne until 1832, when a tunnel 115 yards long was driven through the hill, opening up trade and transforming the town's fortunes. It's still there, if you're curious.
The town was badly damaged by major fires in 1644, 1684, and 1781, three in little more than a century. That Beaminster survived all three and emerged still largely coherent and beautiful is testament to the strong sense of community there.
Remarkable locals
Of Beaminster's remarkable connections, one stands out. William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse was the first airman in history to be awarded the Victoria Cross. On 26 April 1915, flying a biplane, he bombed a German railway junction at Courtrai in Belgium, was mortally wounded by ground fire, but flew back to make his report before dying of his wounds. He was just 27. He is buried at Parnham House, the Tudor manor that burnt down dramatically in 2017, and whose restoration remains a subject of ongoing local interest. A restaurant has opened there, but there are other restaurants and pubs in Beaminster worth visiting too, including The Ollerod and Brassica.
Also associated with the area is Samuel Hearne (1745–1792), the first European to trek overland across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, a feat of endurance that predates the famous polar expeditions by nearly a century. And Martin Clunes, should you need a more contemporary name to drop.
The Dorset dialect poet William Barnes (later rector at Winterbourne Came, near Dorchester, and a favourite of Thomas Hardy) immortalised the town in his poem Sweet Be'mi'ster:
Sweet Be'mi'ster, that bist a-boundBy green an'woody hills all round
He's still right now.
Beaminster is about 25 minutes from Poundbury, and autumn is a great time to visit it!
With thanks to Paul Coggins for the research and local knowledge behind this piece. Have a suggestion for a future Out and About? Email whatson@lovepoundbury.org.
For more information about local attractions, click here and also check out Discover Dorchester and Visit Dorset.