Beaminster

Beaminster
Beaminster town centre
Beaminster  Beaminster shown within Dorset
Population	3,100 (2013 estimate)
OS grid reference	ST4701
– London	145 miles (233 km)
Civil parish	Beaminster
District	West Dorset
Shire county	Dorset
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Beaminster
Postcode district	DT8
Dialling code	01308
Police	Dorset
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	West Dorset
List of places UK England Dorset

Coordinates: 50°48′32″N 2°44′21″W / 50.809°N 2.7391°W / 50.809; -2.7391

Beaminster /ˈbɛmᵻnstər/ BEM-in-stər is a small town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the West Dorset administrative district approximately 15 miles (24 km) northwest of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the small River Brit. The 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of Beaminster parish is 3,100.

In its history Beaminster has been a centre of manufacture of linen and woollens, the raw materials for which were produced in the surrounding countryside. The town experienced three serious fires in the 17th and 18th centuries; the first of these, during the English Civil War, almost destroyed the fabric of the town.

Beaminster parish church is notable for its architecture, particularly its handsome tower.

History

In the Domesday Book of 1086 the manor of Beaminster was recorded as being owned by the See of Salisbury. Bishop Osmund gave it as a supplement to two of the Cathedral prebends in 1091.^[1]

In the English Civil War the town declared for Parliament and was sacked by Royalist forces in 1644. Prince Maurice stayed in the town on Palm Sunday,^[1] though his stay was brief because a fire, caused by a musket being discharged into a thatched roof,^[2] almost totally destroyed the town.^[1] The town suffered further accidental fires in 1684 and 1781.^[3]

Previously Beaminster was a centre for the production of linen and woollens. Flax was grown and sheep kept on the surrounding hills and the town was locally more important than it is today: factories were constructed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and as many as seventeen inns existed in the town in the early 20th century.^[4]

No railway line came through Beaminster and as a result the town declined relative to other local towns such as Bridport and Dorchester.^[5]

Horn Park, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north-west of Beaminster, is a neo-Georgian country house of five bays and two-storeys designed by architect T. Lawrence Dale and completed in 1911.^[6] Inside the house the central corridor is barrel vaulted and leads to a drawing room whose groin vault is reminiscent of the work of Sir John Soane (1753–1837).^[6] The drawing room includes Jacobean features re-used from a 16th-century country house at nearby Parnham,^[6] which was being altered and restored at about the time that Horn Park was being built.^[7] Horn Park is Listed Grade II. Its gardens are occasionally open to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme.

Geography

View showing hills to the west of the town

Beaminster is sited between 50 to 80 metres (160 to 260 ft) above sea level in a bowl-shaped valley, surrounded by hills which rise to 244 metres (801 ft) at Beaminster Down to the northeast. The River Brit and many small streams emerge from springs on the slopes above the town.^[8] The confluences of several of these streams are within the town's boundaries. Beaminster's growth has historically been along the course of these streams, resulting in a settlement pattern that is roughly star-shaped.^[9]

Beaminster is situated approximately 45 miles (72 km) south of Bristol, 38 miles (61 km) west of Bournemouth, 35 miles (56 km) east of Exeter and 15 miles (24 km) northwest of the county town Dorchester.

Geology

Beaminster is sited mostly on Middle Jurassic Fuller's earth clay, with some Inferior Oolite in the south of the town and Bridport and Yeovil Sands north of the town centre. The hills north and east of the town are Cretaceous chalk with a scarp face of Upper Greensand, while those to the south and west are of Bridport and Yeovil Sands. There are several faults running westnorthwest to eastsoutheast through the town and its southern environs.^[9] Horn Park Quarry SSSI^[10][11] produced building stone from the Inferior Oolite and some quality fossil specimens^[12] before becoming a light industrial estate on the road to Broadwindsor. Apart from the ammonites, the site displays a remarkable flat erosion surface and the most complete succession in the Upper Aalenian ironshot oolite limestone of the area.

Demography

Beaminster parish

Dorset County Council's 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of Beaminster parish is 3,100.^[13]

The historic population of Beaminster parish from the censuses between 1921 and 2001 is shown in the table below.

2011 census

Published results from the 2011 national census combine information on Beaminster parish with the small neighbouring parish of Mapperton to the southeast. Within this area there were 1,680 dwellings,^[15] 1,529 households^[16] and a population of 3,136.^[17]

Economy and society

DuPont factory

DuPont produce Nisaplin (E234), a commercial formulation of the natural bacteriocin nisin, at a factory in the town.^[18] It was first isolated by Aplin and Barret and produced in the 1950s in the factory laboratory then situated in 11–15 North Street. The Clipper tea company is based in Beaminster. It is currently held by the Dutch company Royal Wessanen.^[19][20]

Beaminster hosts the Beaminster Festival, an annual music and art festival.^[21] Whitcombe Disc golf Course at Beaminster has hosted the British Open Disc Golf Championship on a number of occasions and the European Disc Golf Championship in 2003.^[22] The town is twinned with the town of St James on the Brittany / Normandy border in France.

Transport

The nearest railway station is 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the town at Crewkerne. Exeter International Airport is 30 miles (48 km) to the west. The main road through the town is the A3066, which leads to Bridport to the south and Mosterton and Crewkerne to the north. The road north passes through Horn Hill tunnel, which opened in June 1832^[23] and is the sole pre-railway age road tunnel that is still in daily public use.^[24]

Education

Primary schools in the town include St Mary's Church of England Primary School.

Beaminster School is the towns secondary school. It has a combined sixth form with The Sir John Colfox Academy, in the nearby town of Bridport.

Religion

St. Mary's parish church

Beaminster has an Anglican church, St Mary's, and a Catholic church, St John's.^[25] St Mary's is notable for its architecture, which is considered among the best in the county.^[1] The tower in particular has been described as "a handsome example of its period" and "the glory of Beaminster".^[4][26] St Mary's construction mostly dates from the 15th and 16th centuries, but was restored twice in the 19th. The eastern part of the north aisle incorporates part of an earlier 13th-century building, and the font bowl is late 12th-century.^[26] The pulpit is Jacobean.^[1]

In literature

Beaminster is described as "Emminster" in the fictional Wessex of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.^[27]

Dorset's 19th-century dialect poet William Barnes wrote of Beaminster:^[27]

Sweet Be'mi'ster, that bist a-bound
By green and woody hills all round,
Wi' hedges, reachen up between
A thousand vields o' zummer green.

Notable people

Beaminster is the adopted hometown of actor Martin Clunes,^[28][29] and was where singer PJ Harvey went to school. Mat Follas had his first restaurant The Wild Garlic^[30] in the town square, though in 2013 it was moved to larger premises elsewhere. Beaminster is also home of Lynne Reid Banks, author of The L-Shaped Room and The Indian in the Cupboard.^[31] The furniture maker John Makepeace lives in the town after selling nearby Parnham House, where his school for craftsmen in wood was originally based. Parnham was also the home of William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, the first airman ever to receive the Victoria Cross, following a daring bombing mission over Courtrai in 1915. Beaminster was the boyhood home of the arctic explorer and author Samuel Hearne. Hearne is considered by some to have been the inspiration for the tragic figure in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.^[32] Beaminster is also the home of the clothier and serge-maker Levieux family, that started producing high-quality wool products in 1700 by the innitiative of Theodore Levieux and that for over a hundred years they supplied wool items to the Royal Family, until the 1800s by the clothing production of Gersom Levieux.

Twin towns

Beaminster is twinned with:

• Saint-James, France^{[33][34][35][36]}

See also

• Beaminster Forum and Redhone hundred
• Beaminster Down

References

Sources

• Newman, John; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1972). Dorset. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 84–89. ISBN 0-14-071044-2. 

External links

• Beaminster at DMOZ

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beaminster.

Ceremonial county of Dorset
Dorset Portal
Unitary authorities	Bournemouth Poole
Boroughs or districts	Christchurch East Dorset North Dorset Purbeck West Dorset Weymouth and Portland
Major settlements	Beaminster Blandford Forum Bournemouth Bridport Chickerell Christchurch Dorchester Ferndown Gillingham Lyme Regis Poole Portland Shaftesbury Sherborne Stalbridge Sturminster Newton Swanage Upton Verwood Wareham Weymouth Wimborne Minster See also: List of civil parishes in Dorset
Rivers	Allen Asker Avon Axe Bourne Brit Cerne Frome Hooke Moors Piddle Stour Sydling Water Tarrant Wey
Topics	Flag Settlements Beaches County Council Places Population of major settlements Geology Geography SSSIs History Schools Lord Lieutenants High Sheriffs Museums People Transport

Towns, villages and hamlets in the West Dorset district of Dorset, England
	Abbotsbury Allington Alton Pancras Askerswell Athelhampton Batcombe Beaminster Beer Hackett Bettiscombe Bincombe Bishop's Caundle Bothenhampton Bradford Abbas Bradford Peverell Bradpole Bridport Broadmayne Broadwindsor Buckland Newton Burstock Burton Bradstock Castleton Catherston Leweston Cattistock Caundle Marsh Cerne Abbas Charlton Down Charminster Charmouth Chedington Cheselbourne Chetnole Chickerell Chideock Chilcombe Chilfrome Clifton Maybank Compton Valence Corscombe Crossways Dewlish Dorchester Drimpton East Chelborough Evershot Eype Fleet Folke Frampton Frome St Quintin Frome Vauchurch Goathill Godmanstone Halstock Hermitage Hilfield Holnest Holwell Hooke Langton Herring Leigh Lillington Littlebredy Litton Cheney Loders Long Bredy Longburton Lyme Regis Maiden Newton Mapperton Marshwood Melbury Bubb Melbury Osmond Melcombe Horsey Minterne Magna Morcombelake Mosterton Netherbury Nether Cerne Nether Compton North Poorton North Wootton Oborne Osmington Osmington Mills Over Compton Owermoigne Piddlehinton Piddletrenthide Pilsdon Plush Portesham Poundbury Powerstock Poxwell Poyntington Puddletown Puncknowle Purse Caundle Rampisham Ryall Ryme Intrinseca Sandford Orcas Seaborough Seatown Sherborne Shipton Gorge South Perrott Stanton St Gabriel Stinsford Stoke Abbott Stratton Swyre Sydling St Nicholas Symondsbury Thorncombe Thornford Tincleton Toller Fratrum Toller Porcorum Toller Whelme Tolpuddle Trent Uploders Walditch Warmwell West Bay West Bexington West Compton West Knighton West Milton West Stafford Whitchurch Canonicorum Whitcombe Winterborne Came Winterborne Monkton Winterborne St Martin Winterbourne Abbas Winterbourne Steepleton Woodsford Wootton Fitzpaine Wraxall Wynford Eagle Yetminster