called "Dungeness" was contemporary with the Priory, and near
by is a fine old Tudor house, once the Castle Inn, but now used as a
club.

The picturesque Town Hall with its clock turret is the best known
feature of Bridport and lends quite a distinctive air to the broad
High Street which has the vista of its west end filled by the
cone-shaped Colmers Hill. South Street leads to West Bay, at the mouth
of the diminutive Bride or Brit. The little town of late, mainly
through the exertions of the Great Western Railway, has made an
attempt to transform itself into a watering place. The coast is
attractive and possibly at some future date the railway and the local
landowner will have their way, but at present West Bay is in a state
of transition. Many who knew the primitive aspect of the tiny port
before the paved front and its shelters came to keep company with the
hideous row of lodging houses that stand parallel with the Bride, will
deplore the change, or hope for the time when that change will be
complete and nothing is left to remind them of the lost
picturesqueness of Bridport Quay.

Burton Cliff is the name of the odd rounded hill on the east that has
been cut neatly in half by the slow wearing of the waves. On the other
side of it is Burton Bradstock, nearly two miles from West Bay
station. This place is unremarkable in itself but must be mentioned
for its beautiful and picturesque situation. It has been found by the
holiday-maker, and houses of the red brick villa type are likely to
increase in number unless the local builder can be prevailed upon to
use local material. The restored cruciform church, Perpendicular in
style, has a modern addition in its clock, a relic of the old building
of Christ's Hospital in the City of London.

[Illustration: PUNCKNOLL.]

Away to the north beyond the small village of Skipton Gorge, is
Skipton Beacon, a hill with a striking and imposing outline. Equally
fine, though on a much smaller scale, is Puncknoll, away to the east
of Swyre. The hill or knoll is usually called Puncknoll Knob by the
country people and, very absurdly, Puncknoll Knoll by some of the
guide books. It commands a perfectly gorgeous view of the sea and
shore as far as Abbotsbury and over West Bay to the hills around Lyme.
The village that takes its name from the hill is behind it to the
north. In the small church is an old Norman font covered with carvings
of interlaced ropes and heads; also some memorials of a