104 FOURTEENTH CENTURY LTFE IN BRIDPORT. 



said that the wills for this year were enrolled for safety in the 

 borough archives, since the fear of infection precluded access to 

 the Archdeacon or Archbishop for probate. 



However, it may be noted that the chief interest of these 

 wills, from a municipal point of view, is that they shew so 

 clearly how the Corporation acquired those properties which 

 supply its present wealth. Take a case in point the Greyhound 

 Hotel. One can trace the whole or part of its site back to the 

 year 1307, when William, son and heir of Robert de Bemynstre, 

 bought a house alongside St. Andrew's Church. Twenty-three 

 years later Richard de Bemynstre, whose son of the same name, 

 the M.P. for Bridport and founder of St. Katherine's Chantry, 

 thus bequeaths it in his will in 1386: "Item I give and 

 " bequeath unto Alice my wife for life all that my tenement 

 " with the tavern lately built on the east side of St. Andrew's 

 *' Church on condition that after her death the said tenement 

 " shall remain to the Bailifs of the Community of Bridport 

 " and their successors for ever." I might instance several 

 other testators who left land thus in reversion to the borough, 

 and in many cases they saddled their bequest with a condi- 

 tion that an annual mass and obit should be provided for 

 ever in their memory. Needless to say, the latter condition 

 lapsed at the Reformation, though the Borough still enjoys the 

 lands. 



Let me pass on to the third point fourteenth century church 

 life in Bridport as illustrated by these wills. A whole volume 

 might be written on this subject. Ecclesiastically, this small 

 town was exceedingly well equipped. There were no less than 

 five churches, of which St. Mary's is the only one now extant. 

 St. Andrew's stood on the site of the present Town Hall ; St. 

 John's on the site of the Priory Rope Factory ; St. Michael's by 

 the present lane of that name ; and St. Swithun's by Allington 

 Vicarage. There were, besides, the Magdalen Leper-house in 

 Allington, and the St. John's Hospital by the East Bridge, now the 

 site of the West Dorset Club House. Not only were these well 

 supported by endowments and legacies, but a staff of ten clergy 



