A beautiful, bespoke piece of furniture has disappeared from Dorchester’s town centre – and people want to know why.
The 11 metres of lovely, windy-windy oak bench outside Waitrose in Tudor Arcade was installed in 2012 – the work of Simon Thomas Pirie, who is based at Rogers Hill Farm, near Briantspuddle.
Its unique snaking design allowed many people to have a rest while shopping and provided a social space too.
It was made from locally grown oak from the Ilchester Estate.
Simon wrote: “Since fitting the bench in early May 2012 we have heard and witnessed all sorts of lovely feedback.
“The seat is very well used by people of all ages, at lunchtimes and on sunny days it is often completely full. One of the nicest stories we have heard is of a large extended family pretending to be on a bus with dad walking along the bench issuing tickets to the children. In 15 years of making furniture professionally it’s the story which has given me most pleasure.”

The bench was crafted using a combination of very high-tech CNC manufacturing and the low-tech discipline of steam bending. The contrasting finishes of the natural oak chair elements next to the black scorched and scrubbed oak of the curving bench slats was unique.
But during the pandemic, the bench was removed. Perhaps it was due to covid restrictions at the time – no one knows, including Dorchester town councillor and former town crier Alistair Chisholm, who has tried in vain to have the bench restored. He said: “As a community with an active chamber of commerce, BID and town council we could have looked after the bench – there was no need for them to take it away.
“When I got in touch they said someone had set fire to it and didn’t seem to much care.
“It would have to have been a heck of a fire to damage that bench beyond repair.
“It was a beautifully, imaginatively crafted bench.
“It’s very sad – we can’t afford to lose things like that through carelessness.
“What about insurance? Surely a 20 grand bench was insured? People who own things in town centres seem not to have real interest in them.
“That bench was very important – the older I get the more I miss it.”
Simon, who trained at Hooke Park College, near Beaminster, said: “It was removed during covid for perhaps obvious reasons and I was told that was temporary and it was going to be re-instated.
“It needed a refurbishment anyway as it had been poorly maintained and refinished by the maintenance contractors working on behalf of the owners.
“We were in conversation with the owners to do that work.
“As is often the case these retail areas in town centres are often owned by large companies and I understand the ownership of Tudor Arcade changed.”
It seems the benches were put in ‘storage’ somewhere local, but they were vandalised – burned beyond repair.
Some people mourning the loss of the bench, unable to find answers, have concluded the ongoing maintenance cost may have put the new arcade owners off reinstating it.
Simon said: “It’s a shame such a lovely piece of work is no longer there.
“From my perspective it’s the piece of work that had the most public interaction and profile. Most of what we do is in private property and never gets seen!”
n The West Dorset Magazine has approached the arcade’s owners and managers for comment.