BRIDPORT HARBOUR. 195 



plan were returned, the latter showing those parts of the quays 

 which could be so used. The line ran from the crane house, round 

 the eastern end of the basin, to a point near the sluice. Under a 

 second commission at a later date, the limits of the port for customs 

 purposes were fixed as being from the neck of land called Portland 

 Bill to the western bank of the river Char, and within a distance 

 of three leagues from the shore. The total length of lawful quays 

 inside the harbour, where vessels might load or unload, was fixed 

 at 755 feet, as marked upon the plan. 



Under a third commission of 1846 it w y as ordered that the 

 boundaries should be denned and set out anew. The lawful 

 quays were extended to 1,340 feet ; the port was defined as 

 beginning on the east at the hedge by the stream which divided 

 Burton from Swyre, known as Burton Gyle, and thence to the 

 western bank of the river Char, and within three miles seawards 

 from low water mark. The plan shows a gate attached to the 

 most northern of the three jetties, in order to close the entrance to 

 the basin against heavy seas. 



(cf. Exchequer Commissions 7002.) 



After the establishment of the Custom House the trade of 

 the port flourished for a quarter of a century, during which the 

 summit of prosperity was reached, but the growth of the rail- 

 way system, coupled with the opening of a branch line to 

 Bridport in Nov. 1857, so affected the receipts from dues 

 that the Board of Customs was compelled to deprive the 

 hamlet of its dignity as a bond-port. Accordingly in 1881 

 it was reduced to the former status of a creek, and was placed 

 under Wey mouth, which is its position at the present time. 



By an Act of the year 1832 the boundaries of the town for 

 Parliamentary voting purposes were extended to the coast, 

 and in 1835 another Act provided that the municipal area 

 should be similarly enlarged ; thus, and at last, the harbour 

 was joined in law, as it had been in sentiment, to the borough 

 which had guided its fortunes since the day when Alvredus of 

 Frampton taxed the pathway of the river. 



THE SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY. 



I have hitherto refrained from comment upon the ship 

 yard, which occupied a position at the western end of the 



