Lyme Regis & Around Through Time

Lyme Regis is Dorset's most westerly town, lying hard by the Devon border. It is famous today as one of the main attractions of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, and indeed it was the work of a local resident in the nineteenth century, Mary Anning, that did a great deal to raise scientific and popular interest in the rich fossil-bearing rocks of this spectacular stretch of coast. Lyme Regis also has important literary connections with Jane Austen and is the setting for John Fowles' novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. The scenes in the film of the same name where Meryl Streep looks out from The Cobb harbour wall are particularly memorable. Historically Lyme Regis was a port and fishing town, and its historic centre extends up a steep hill from the coast. This book looks at the old part of the town in particular, together with its wider setting in the spectacular local landscape. Also covered are some of the nearby places, notably Charmouth a couple of miles to the east - a Medieval market town in its own right, and today another centre of the fossil industry - as well as a number of smaller villages. Most of the old images in this book are about a century old, and are paired with the author's own photographs.