history

West Bay Discovery Centre

Susan West Bay , 0 Comment
Methodist Chapel

The West Bay Discovery Centre was officially opened last week. It’s in the old Methodist chapel, situated on the left as you walk towards the Watch House cafe on East beach. The photo above shows it before all the exciting plans came to fruition. The aim of the centre is to bring West Bay and the Jurassic Coast to life with stories that tell of it’s history, hidden heritage and natural environment.

Here’s a link to a local lady’s blog post about all the hard work required to get to the opening.

Earlier this year I spent a while reading about West Bay and wrote a brief (ish) post myself about the history so I’m really looking forward to visiting the centre next time I’m there. I hope that the information in my post bears a resemblance to that in the centre! I’m sure I’ll find out a lot of new things too.

The centre is free to enter but it is a charity and relies on donations to keep it going. It will be open this year until October, every Tuesday to Sunday between 11am and 4pm.

If you want to visit the West Bay Discovery Centre but haven’t yet booked accommodation, then we’d love to welcome you to West Bay Cottage. Take a look inside the cottage here if you wish. Head to our Book With Us page for availability, the rates and how to book.

Dorset Dialect Words

Susan West Dorset 1 Comment
A dumbledore!

Do you know what the word for bumblebee is in the Dorset dialect? If you’ve read the Harry Potter books it will be familiar to you. It’s dumbledore. Author J K Rowling chose Dumbledore for her Hogwarts headmaster because of his love of music. She imagined him bumbling about his study “humming to himself a lot”. Incidentally, the old Dorset word for wasp is wopsy. It comes from a Dorset habit of transposing the “s” sound.

Here is some more West Country dialect words. One of the rivers running through Bridport is the River Asker, but an asker is also a West Dorset word for a newt. Emmet means an ant. Cornish people may use this word for tourists or “incomers”. In the rest of the West Country you are more likely to hear holidaymakers called grockles, usually in a slightly derogatory way. For example, in the summer a local might complain, with a roll of the eyes, that the grockles are clogging up the roads.

Understandably, the name for a bat is an airmouse. However I can’t figure out why anyone would call a ladybird God Almighty’s cow. How peculiar!

Did you recently see tinklebobs (icicles) in the snowy weather? Do you ever ballyrag your noggerhead kiddie (scold your blockhead man)? And a bite before breakfast? It’s a dewbit. That’s the badger. (That’s exactly what I was looking for / exactly what I meant.)

Now I’m a little joppety-joppety (nervous) you’ve not enjoyed reading this. But if you have and want to read more here’s a link to a list of more Dorset dialect words.

Dorset Knobs

Susan West Dorset , , 0 Comment
Dorset Knob Tins

With a name guaranteed to invoke much hilarity among children, Dorset knobs are a local speciality. Read on if you are interested in finding out more about them:

  • Originally Dorset knobs were made from leftover bread dough with added butter and sugar, hand-rolled and left to dry in the dying heat of the oven.
  • These days they are still made from bread dough which contains extra sugar and butter. They are rolled and shaped by hand and baked three times. Once cooked, they are roughly the size of a golf ball, very crumbly and rather like a dry, hard breadstick. They keep crisp and tasty in a tin for months. Don’t be fooled by the picture, they are much crispier than a bread roll.
  • It is thought their name comes from the hand-sewn Dorset knob buttons that were also made locally. They have also been compared, in size, to door knobs.
  • In the past there were a number of producers of Dorset knobs. Today the only firm to produce them commercially is Moores Biscuits. They have been making them for more than 130 years. The knobs are now baked in Moores factory in Bridport.
  • The company makes roughly two million knobs a year but only during January and February. The 8 – 10 hour process means they are not economically viable to produce for longer. By the start of March the demand for sweet biscuits has increased again after the New Year lull and the company returns to its profitable and less labour-intensive biscuits.
  • They can be eaten with cheese (traditionally Blue Vinny), dipped in tea or cider, or taken with honey and cream. This is known locally as thunder and lightning.
  • Dorset knobs were a favourite food of local author Thomas Hardy. He liked them with stilton cheese.
  • The Dorset Knob Throwing Festival made a comeback in 2024 following a five-year break. While the main attraction is the knob throwing, there are various other ‘knob games’ which include Knob Painting, Splat the Knob, Knob or no Knob, Putt the Knob, Knob and Spoon Race, Guess the Weight of the Big Knob, Knob Darts, Knob Pyramid and Pin the Knob on the Cerne Abbas Giant.  In 2025 a new knob throwing record was set, with a distance of 32.05m narrowly beating the previous record of 31.9m.
  • Dorset knobs are normally sold in a bag or tin in Dorset delicatessens, farm shops and independent food stores. I think our nearest stockist is Harbour Gifts and Groves Nursery. They would make a nice little present to say thank you to someone who has been watering your garden / feeding your goldfish / looking after your hamster (etc) while you holiday in West Dorset. But be warned, supplies are limited. When they’re gone, they’re gone, until next year anyway.

If you fancy a holiday near the home of the Dorset knob we’d love to welcome you to West Bay Cottage! Please take a look inside the cottage or head to our Enquire and Book page for availability, the rates and how to book.

The History Of West Bay

Susan Cottage, West Bay , , 0 Comment
View from high on West Cliff

Are you interested in finding out about West Bay’s history? Then please read on. Best make yourself a hot drink and find a comfy chair before you begin, you have a lot of years to get through…

Thanks to the author of the westbay.co.uk website. Much of the information was gathered from it. If this post leaves you wanting more then just go to that website where you will definitely find a lot more. A labour of love I think.

I have highlighted all the buildings which are still around in BOLD so that next time you wander about the harbour with other people you can make yourself look extremely knowledgable and clever by pointing out the landmarks whilst you impart a little bit of their history!

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin. Just click here:  The history of West Bay

An Ancient Path Called A Holloway

Susan Things to do, West Dorset , , 0 Comment
Hell Lane

Did you see the series on ITV last year called Best Walks With A View with Julia Bradbury? In one episode she was in West Dorset on a Golden Cap walk. She started inland in Symondsbury and from there walked off down a footpath, a Dorset holloway.

What’s a holloway?

The name holloway name comes from the Old English “hola weg”, meaning a sunken road. Over hundreds of years the wearing action of feet, cartwheels and rain have deepened sandy tracks in the soft sandstone rock in South Dorset, gouging paths into the bedrock itself and creating deep ditches. Long since abandoned as thoroughfares, and overgrown with brambles and bushes, the paths are often now unknown to all but locals.

The author Robert Macfarlane has written about them in his book Holloway. Stanley Donwood illustrated it. He is best known for his work on Radiohead albums.

The holloway near Symondsbury was probably a drove trail used to move cattle and other animals from farms to markets or perhaps a pilgrimage route. It’s likely that heavy carts took stone along it to Symondsbury from the local quarry. Maybe smugglers, having taken their contraband up from Seatown beach, used the sunken lane to surreptitiously transfer goods inland?

Our spooky walk

We decided to go and walk the holloway ourselves. With Shutes Lane it connects Symondsbury with North Chideock. We parked in Symondsbury, climbed up and back down Colmers Hill, and then walked out of the village.

For a while our path was just an ordinary country lane but then the greenery thickened. Soon steep walls of rock towered above us on both sides. We continued our walk through what was now a narrow gorge. Gnarled tree roots were exposed out of the rocks, ivy trailed down. Trees above us filtered the light making it felt at times as if we were travelling down a tunnel. Over countless years many passersby had stopped to etch messages, names, faces, giant eyes and other shapes into the rocks. Were we imagining it or did the atmosphere feel a little sinister as we continued along the shadowed path? The name of it did nothing to dispel this vague sense of unease… Hell Lane. I wonder why it is called that?

Are you thinking you’d like to visit the area and go on the beautiful Golden Cap walk? If you are and you haven’t yet booked accommodation, we’d love to welcome you to West Bay Cottage. Take a look inside the cottage, or head to our Book With Us page for availability, the rates and how to book.