August 5, 2016: The train to Dorchester gave me a look at part of Poole, which appeared to be a lot flatter than Bournemouth, and well provided with yachts. At Dorchester South I needed to switch from train to bus, and I had wondered whether I would have trouble finding it. Turned out that Dorchester South was a very small station, with just two platforms, and I could see the X51 bus waiting outside as my train arrived. Unfortunately, I had to cross the tracks to reach it, lugging my case up the footbridge steps and then down again.
I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on the way to Lyme Regis – picture perfect agricultural England, rolling country covered with fields, hedges and copses, although the fields seemed a good bit bigger than I remembered. The bad news was the traffic, although on a summer Friday heading west I suppose I should have expected it. As we inched forward towards Bridport, on a winding two lane road masquerading as a main route, and then again on the way out of Bridport, I was very happy not to be driving.
The Old Lyme Guesthouse, my destination, was everything the Derby Manor in Bournemouth was not. Small, old, and unpretentious, with welcoming new owners, and with a wonderful location near the sea front. I had originally reserved a different B&B, but when I put my final itinerary together, and rechecked the reviews, I realized that it was up a very steep hill. In fact I passed it during my stay, and was exceedingly glad to be going downhill at the time. The Old Lyme had begun its existence as the town post office, and the old wooden mail slot, thought to have been used by Jane Austen to mail a letter to her sister Cassandra, was still a much photographed feature.
For a small place – year round population maybe 5,000 – Lyme Regis has a remarkable history, and a number of literary connections not limited to “Persuasion”. My first full day I took the history walk advertised by the helpful T.I. and learned a whole lot. The town was packed and I had though the walk would have drawn a crowd, but only two couples joined me.
While I associated Lyme Regis with tourism, sea bathing didn’t take off until the 1800s, and I had imagined that it had previously survived as a fishing port. But the local enthusiast leading the walk told us that Lyme Regis had been a trading and ship building port of major significance – bigger than Liverpool, he said. Its population in Elizabethan times had been the same as it was today, and the sheltered anchorage provided by the Cobb drew shipping until eventually bigger ships needed deeper waters and the town languished, to be reinvigorated by the Georgian craze for drinking sea water. The trade had been wool for wine, with a fair amount of smuggling at various times.
The Cobb, the breakwater so crucial to the port’s development, had existed in some form since at least 1313, although it had been renewed and improved a number of times. I was surprised to learn that it was not connected to land until 1756, and further surprised to see that it was not in Lyme Regis proper, but in Cobb hamlet a short walk west.
I had already taken a look at the parish church, but now I learned that parts were older than I had thought, with a Norman arch at the entrance, although the elaborate font that I had admired was only Victorian. The town’s buildings have succumbed at various times to bombardment, fire and flood, and, in the case of the Georgian assembly rooms where Jane Austen danced, to outright demolition, but some old ones remain, including a Tudor building with a Georgian front.
Lyme Regis has a surprisingly martial history, having withstood a lengthy siege during the English Civil War. A strongly Protestant town (known to Mary Tudor as “that heretic town”), it sided with Parliament, and Prince Maurice spent five weeks in 1644 attempting to take it for the Crown before withdrawing to fight the Battle of Lostwithiel. A few years later, in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis in a bid to depose the Catholic James II. A number of local men joined the rebellion, and following Monmouth’s defeat were executed or transported after trial at the infamous Bloody Assizes, presided over by Judge Jeffries. (James was subsequently kicked out without casualties in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary.)
After all this serious history I was glad of a lighter story involving Henry Fielding (author of “Tom Jones”). Seems that while staying in the town he attempted to abduct a local heiress, only to be soundly defeated by her relations, who intended her as a bride for her cousin. Fielding left, never to return, but Austen clearly liked the place, and John Fowles (“French Lieutenant’s Woman”) lived there for many years, and was curator of the museum for a decade.
The walk had stayed on the flat, but you need to be fit to live in the town, as most of it climbs steeply in all directions. I had asked the tour leader where to find the best coffee in town, and he had replied that he didn’t drink it himself, but there was a place called Amid Giants and Idols that was supposed to be good, along with Aroma. Aroma was on the flat, but I couldn’t resist the quirky name of the other place, and trekked up, and up, to Silver Street, and a reasonable macchiato and a good smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich.
Lovely photos
Looks like you’ve enjoyed Lyme. A lovely little town even if it is hilly. Wish I was back there instead of working!
Yes, not sure I would go back, at least not in August, but a nice town that hasn’t lost its soul.