It has been ‘a mad few months’ for the owners of a new music shop in the town which opened its doors this month.

Ben Wain has taken over the former premises of Bridport Music in South Street and opened Bridport Music Centre after seeing an article on social media about it closing its doors for a final time in October.

He said: “I play the fiddle and had moved from Dorchester to West Bay five years ago, since then had regularly used the shop to buy violin strings, bows and rosin and anything else musical, so I was genuinely sad to see it go.

“My wife Jane still thinks it was a bonkers idea, but we decided to go for it and see if we could raise the funds to buy it. Unfortunately, we were unable to save Bridport Music as everyone knew it, however, we weren’t to be dissuaded and with the loan already in place we thought, ‘what the hell’ and went for it.”

Bridport Music had been in the town for more than 40 years but closed in October.

Ben added: “It’s been a mad few months with a complete shop refit and basically starting a music shop from scratch.

“When I’m not playing my fiddle, I’m an electrician and luckily for me I have some very talented tradesmen as friends who I am eternally grateful to - if I say so myself, the shop looks great and we’re very proud of it.”

They managed to open the shop in time for Bridport Christmas Cheer earlier this month.

“It was great to meet lots of new people and lots of our friends who seemed to be genuinely chuffed that there was a music shop open again in Bridport,” Ben said.

“It’s going to be a bit of a family affair with my wife Jane, my sister Nina, my step-dad Paul and our friend Louise all helping me out.

“We will be selling new vinyl and CDs, musical instruments and accessories. We have also introduced a giftware and clothing section and we have a group of instrument repairers/restorers for all kinds of instrument repairs.

“So, we’re here and as you can imagine it’s a work in progress. If we haven’t got it, we can usually get it in a couple of days.”

The shop is open from 9.30am to 5pm from Monday to Saturday.