The Bridport Literary Festival 2018

Architectural historian Tim Connor has written several accounts of small areas of West Dorset and of churches and other local monuments. His new book: The Literary and Scientific Institute is an enthralling account of the triumphant restoration of one of Bridport’s most distinguished buildings that was, in its early years, The Mechanics Institute. Bridport has been described as
‘one of the best towns in Dorset, and for a continuously sustained urban feeling, perhaps the best of all’. Connor reveals that to a great extent this is due to what happened to the town in the mid nineteenth century, and also to what didn’t happen then. He examines developments in those years that saw the town achieve its present form and which indeed led to The Making of Bridport.