Beaminster

Beaminster is a market town of 3,177 people (2021 census) in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the River Brit, about 15 miles north-west of Dorchester. It lies within the Dorset National Landscape, and Thomas Hardy renamed it Emminster in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A fire in 1644, during the Civil War, almost destroyed the town. The grade I listed church of St Mary, mostly 15th and 16th century, has a tower that is often singled out as its finest feature.

Beaminster Museum on Whitcombe Road is run by volunteers, free to enter and runs a summer season. It covers the town’s flax and sailcloth industry and its clockmakers. Just outside town, Mapperton has a Jacobean manor and a 15-acre Italianate garden in a steep combe, open to visitors seasonally. Hooke Park, 350 acres of ancient woodland and the Architectural Association’s woodland campus, is crossed by public rights of way and known locally for its spring bluebells.

No railway ever came to Beaminster. The nearest station is Crewkerne, 5 miles north, and Exeter Airport is about 30 miles to the west as the crow flies. The A3066 runs south to Bridport and north to Crewkerne through Horn Hill tunnel, which opened in June 1832 and is the only road tunnel of its pre-railway age still in daily public use.