Lyme Regis

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Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England. The town has a population of 3,513, 45% of which are retired.<ref>Office for National Statistics, 2001. Census data.</ref>. Lyme is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The Royal Charter was granted by King Edward I in 1284, with the addition of 'Regis' to the town's name. This charter was confirmed by Elizabeth I in 1591.

Lyme Regis lies on Lyme Bay, on the South Coast of England at the Dorset-Devon border. It is nicknamed "The Pearl of Dorset". In the 13th century it developed into one of the major British ports. In the early 1960s, its railway station was closed, a victim of the Beeching Axe. It was rebuilt at Alresford in Hampshire. The surviving Adams 'Radial Tank' 4-4-2T locomotive is now in action on the Bluebell Line in Sussex.

Lyme Regis is well known for "The Cobb", a harbour wall full of character and history, built from Portland Admiralty Roach stone. The Cobb is featured in novels by Jane Austen (who stayed for a time in Lyme Regis) and in the The French Lieutenant's Woman by local writer John Fowles, which was adapted as a film set in Lyme Regis.

In 1644, during the English Civil War, the town's men and women Parliamentarians valiantly withstood an 8 week siege by Royalist forces under Prince Maurice.

It was at Lyme Regis that the Duke of Monmouth landed at the start of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685.

In circa 1834, the English Romantic artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 - 1851) painted a scene of Lyme Regis, now in the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio. His near-contemporary, James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903) also visited and stayed in Lyme.

In 2005, as part of the bicentenary re-enactment of the arrival of the historic news of Admiral Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the actor playing the part of Trafalgar messenger Lieutenant Lapenotiere was welcomed at Lyme Regis.

The town is famous for the fossils found in the cliffs and beaches, which are part of the Jurassic Coast (also known as the Heritage Coast), a World Heritage Site. The part of the coast around Lyme Regis is subject to large landslips. The Blue Lias rock is host to a multitude of palaeontological remains. Many of the earliest discoveries of dinosaur and other prehistoric reptile remains were made in the area surrounding Lyme Regis, notably those discovered by Mary Anning (1799 - 1847). Notable finds were Ichthyosaur, Plesiosaur, Dimorphodon and Dapedium. She was laid to rest in the parish church of St Michael the Archangel and the Geographical Society contributed to a stained-glass window to her memory in the same church, having failed to elect her to membership during her lifetime, possibly as a result of latter-day ‘genderism’. The town now holds an annual Mary Anning Day. Her pioneering tradition persists to the present. A fossil of the world's largest moth was discovered in 1966, at Lyme Regis.

1 The Cobb
2 The Town Mill
3 External links
4 References

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The Cobb

The Cobb was of enormous economic importance to the town and surrounding area, allowing it to develop as both a major port and a ship-building centre from the 13th century onwards. It provided both a breakwater to protect the town from storms and an artificial harbour.

Well sited for trade with France, the port's most prosperous period was from the 16th century until the end of the 18th century and as recently as 1780 was it larger than Liverpool. The town's importance as a port declined in the 19th century because it was unable to handle the increased size of ships.

The first written mention of the Cobb is in a 1328 document describing it as having been damaged by storms. The structure was made of oak piles driven into the seabed with boulders stacked between them. The boulders were floated into place tied between empty barrels.

A 1685 account describes it as being made of boulders simply heaped up on eachother: "an immense mass of stone, of a shape of a demi-lune, with a bar in the middle of the concave: no one stone that lies there was ever touched with a tool or bedded in any sort of cement, but all the pebbles of the see are piled up, and held by their bearings only, and the surge plays in and out through the interstices of the stone in a wonderful manner."

The Cobb has been destroyed or severely damaged by storms several times, for example it was swept away in 1377 and this led to 50 boats and 80 houses also being destroyed. The southern arm was added in the 1690s, and rebuilt in 1793 following its destruction in a storm the previous year. This rebuilding is thought to be the first time that mortar was used in the Cobb's construction. The Cobb was completely reconstructed in Portland Admiralty Roach, a type of Portland stone, in 1820.

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The Town Mill

The ancient watermill, dating from 1340, is now restored to working order. The water comes from the River Buddle (also called Lim), which runs along a terrace or lynch, hence the description of lynch mill.

Apart from the working mill, visitors can also eat at the café/restaurant or visit art galleries, craft studios and workshops, a bakery, the mill shop and the Miller's garden.

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