anniversary by restaging iconic photo

that started fundraising and searching for a suitable building in 1968. The fourtimes Mayor was BAC chair in the 1990s. She recalled how Peggy Chapman-Andrews not only guaranteed the realisation of a dream venue but also the ongoing funds to support it: “No one could say no to Peggy!” she said. “After the building was secured she rang me again to say she’d had another idea. She wisely knew we wouldn’t just need capital for the purchase and conversion work on the old chapel but also an income to keep it maintained and developing

THEN: mother)

– what about an annual, fundraising writing competition? Brilliant!

Now we had the Bridport Arts Centre and the Bridport Prize – which would go on to become an internationally-acclaimed literary institution.”

The BAC lobby featured a display of the centre’s 1960s and 1970s archive that has begun to be collected by the arts centre’s ‘time team’, including trustee Ines Cavill, who is already planning an end-of-year exhibition.

The display of early archive in the BAC lobby will be available to view until Saturday, June 10, along with the current exhibition upstairs in the Allsop Gallery: Earth | Ground.

Free entry to both, Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am-4pm.