Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

Lyme Regis

Dorset – Smugglers Coast

The south coast of England in particular has had a long tradition of smuggling, especially where there are many coves or inlets ideal for concealing contraband. Devon and Cornwall are particularly well endowed in this regard, but Dorset has hardly been less important as a focus for the trade. The life of Isaac Gulliver, the ‘smuggler’s king’ of Dorset, has been covered in a biographic feature on the site, here I am considering the more general look at smuggling and what motivated people to become involved in its illegal operations.

Usually thought of as a male preserve, what may at first surprise many people is the extent to which women were also involved. Some of these would have been smugglers wives, though this is not invariably the case. Dorset, in the heyday of smuggling, was of course a very rural and sparsely populated county, with much agrarian poverty. The business of importing goods, usually liquor, from cross-channel boats under the cover of darkness in order to flout excise regulations was a lucrative sideline that impoverished families living within a few miles of the coast would find too great a temptation to overlook.

The register for Dorchester Gaol 1782-1853 lists the names and occupations of no fewer than 64 women convicted of various smuggling related offences. Twenty one of these (32%) were from Portland alone, while just six resided in Weymouth, five in Bridport, three in Bere Regis and two in Lyme Regis. The parishes of another nine are not recorded. Wool and Woolbridge, Preston, Pulham, Sutton Poyntz, Langton Matravers, Marnhull, Morecombelake, Beaminster, Bradpole, Broadwindsor, Buckland Ripers, Charmouth, Chetnole, Chickerell, Corfe, Dorchester and Kington Magna account for the remaining sixteen.

Three notable examples are Charlotte Drake of Bridport and Ann Maidment, a Bridport buttoner, who both assaulted and obstructed excise officers, and Mary Applin of Langton, who committed an excise offence. Martha Lumb of Weymouth was sentenced to three months hard labour in 1822 for smuggling, while Catherine Winter, a Weymouth seamstress, served an 18-day sentence in 1844 for smuggling at the age of 70!

But regardless of the sex of the offender, for the populace as a whole, smuggling was generally considered an honourable trade. The customs officers or the “King’s Men” were responsible for ensuring that contraband was impounded and fines levied. At Poole the problem of smuggling was so rampant and the customs men so understaffed and overworked that Dragoons had to be deployed to assist them as early as 1723. Typically the customs officers were brave and resourceful with a strict code of conduct; so that names were never banded about and nothing ever put in writing.

Poole was especially ideal for smuggling operations because of the exceptional size and highly indented nature of its harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world. Goods were disembarked into inlet hideaways at Hamworthy and then transported by waggoners to Bristol via Blandford. Furthermore, goods could be offloaded on the south Purbeck coast and hauled overland to be temporarily laid up in the deep inlets such as those at Arne or the Goathorn Peninsula for later distribution to Poole markets without the smugglers having to risk detection by passing through the harbour mouth. Longfleet and Parkstone farmers constructed secret tunnels down to the water’s edge for bringing goods ashore.

After 1759 the volume of smuggled goods passing through Poole significantly increased, though raised vigilance on the part of the Preventatives gradually brought this down. The Commissioners of Customs based in London frequently requested reports on the amount of smuggling going on in the Poole area.

Although landings and disembarkation operations took place from Lyme Regis to Christchurch, the coast from Portland westwards to Lyme attracted special attention. This was because most of the coast is occupied by the Chesil Bank, a shingle spit enclosing a lagoon (the Fleet) which was a convenient storage-sink to hold casks (“tubs”) for collection at a more appropriate time. One memorable incident took place in 1762 when a Cornish vessel was broken up on the Chesil in a winter storm and its cargo washed into the sea. There then followed a desperate attempt by Weymouth citizens to salvage what tubs of liquor they could before the customs house officers could reach them! In the end the citizens claimed 26 tubs to the revenue’s 10; another ten were cast out to sea but recovered the next day.

Probably the greatest hideout and smugglers haunt along this coast was Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family, but which had a connection with smuggling throughout the 18th century from 1719 onwards. In 1719 revenue officers from Weymouth raided the castle and the entire Lulworth area. It has been said that maids working at the castle would routinely warn smugglers when the customs men were in the vicinity by showing a light at a window to indicate when it was safe to come in, but also act as a bearing. The gangs at Lulworth could comprise as many as 100 disguised and heavily armed men, who used Mupe Rocks as the disembarkation point, but the deep ravines and inlets along the coast west of Kimmeridge were also ideal for concealing kegs. A gap in the cliffs at Worbarrow Bay was a special favourite and tubs were raised to the top of Gad Cliff, and brought ashore at Arish Mell and for storage at Tyneham Church.

On a knoll near the coast between West Bexington and Puncknowle there still stands an unusual monument. This is The Lookout, a square building constructed as a signal-station for the Fensibles, but which may also have been used by Isaac Gulliver, who used the Bexingtons, Swyre and Burton Bradstock as landing sites after 1776.

Lyme Regis has had an especially long smuggling history extending back at least as far as the 16th century, when certain merchants were suspected of smuggling bullion out of the country by sea. In 1576 a revenue man called Ralph Lane was sent to Lyme with a deputy bearing a warrant to search ships alleged to be involved in the operations. His arrival however, provoked a riot during which the warrant was seized and Lane’s deputy was thrown into the sea. From Lyme contraband was traditionally floated up the Buddle River, often under the noses of the Preventives, who were frequently understaffed and restrained by bureaucratic regulations. Booty offloaded onto the Cobb could not be inspected until it had been carried half a mile to the Cobb Gate. Lyme is believed to be the birthplace of Warren Lisle, a customs officer who at 17 was appointed Patent Searcher at Poole and who made his first seizure of a cargo from a small vessel in Portland Harbour in 1724.

Weymouth was central to excise operations for the sea, but the town’s revenue officials had a long and shameful history of ineptitude and corruption. Enter George Whelplay, who in the 16th century failed to make any headway in countering popular local support for smuggling. Originally a London haberdasher, Whelplay came to Dorset to try his fortune as a public informer, and as such could claim a fifty per cent commission on each fine he imposed upon those he caught, but in 1538 he incurred the wrath of smugglers and fellow customs officers alike when he exceeded his remit. Whelplay twice stumbled on a cargo of horses being illegally shipped to France, but instead of coming to his assistance in rounding up the French boats the officials joined a gang of merchants and attacked him.

Around 1830 smuggling reached a climax in the Weymouth area, where, it is said; tunnels were constructed from the harbour to merchant’s houses and even to the residence of King George III. The leading figure in smuggling to be connected with Weymouth was Pierre Latour, otherwise known as French Peter, who functioned as a prominent gang-leader in the town. In Wyke Regis churchyard there is a grave of one William Lewis, a smuggler shot dead by a revenue officer on board the schooner Pigmy.

In conclusion, anyone who has anything to do with Dorset will know of Thomas Hardy, the well-known novelist-poet. Less well known is that Hardy was an authority on smuggling – and not without good reason. His birthplace cottage at Highter Bockhampton was actually a capacious safehouse for smuggled contraband that could accommodate up to 80 casks of brandy. “But this isn’tall.” When a child, Hardy was regaled with smuggling stories from his grandfather and his own father had a manservant who was actually involved in the trade. The Bockhampton cottage lay on the smugglers route between Osmington Mills and their markets in Sherborne and Yeovil.

Lyme Regis – The Anning Window

The Anning Window, The Church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lyme Regis.

The Anning Window, The Church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lyme Regis.

Lyme Regis – the Church of St.Michael the Archangel.

The Church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lyme Regis.

The Church of St. Michael the Archangel at Lyme Regis.

Mary Anning’s Grave

The grave of Mary Anning at St. Michael the Archangel, Lyme Regis.

The grave of Mary Anning at St. Michael the Archangel, Lyme Regis.

John Gould – Dorset Birdman With a Dark Secret

Dorset can number many noted figures among its sons and daughters. Perhaps the most extraordinary character to emerge from the county in the 19th century was John Gould, though many would not have heard of him. Gould made a name for himself as an ornithologist of undeniable ability, and apparently he was also a gifted illustrator, who rose to become the toast of Victorian society.

John Gould was borne in Lyme Regis in 1804, the son of an estate gardener. Of his earliest years and education little or nothing is known, though his schooling appears to have been very elementary. His father’s own talents however, led him to secure a position as a gardener in a country estate and, ultimately, to a position of head gardener at the Royal Gardens at Windsor. But his son John’s real educator was the natural world. In the gardens, woods and fields of Dorset the boy’s future passion for ornithology was fostered.

This led young Gould onto an almost obsessive desire to preserve birds and animals for posterity. From another gardener who was skilled in the practise he learnt taxidermy, and discovered in himself an ability to preserve birds using only their dehydrated skins and feathers. With this newly acquired skill John Gould set up a taxidermy business in Windsor, where his unusual eye for the natural stance of birds and animals won for him the recognition of many clients and even the patronage of George IV.

When in 1827 the newly formed London Zoological Society held a competition to fill the position of its first director and curator, Gould entered and won the competition. Three years later, following the acquisition by the Society of a large collection of Himalayan exotic bird skins, the first curator was fired with the desire to bring the specimens to life in a lavishly illustrated book. The subsequent publication proved to be the turning point in Gould’s life. It won such great acclaim from the scientific world that it was said of John Gould that his expertise even surpassed that of the great French artist Audubon. Other books of exotic bird illustrations followed including ‘Birds of Europe’ and the seven-volume ‘Birds of Australia,’ which has an estimated value of over £150,000 at auction today.

But Gould’s reputation didn’t stop at being a master-ornithologist and illustrator. He was also a producer, director, publishing magnate, and entrepreneur – even a bit-player in the emergence of evolutionary theory. For it was John Gould to whom Charles Darwin entrusted for identification the bird-skins he had collected in the Galapagos Islands during the famous voyage of The Beagle. He was able to classify the specimens as eleven new species of finch – the very birds, which through the subtle changes or adaptations to different niches they displayed, Darwin would later use as a pivotal piece of evidence for evolution by natural selection. Darwin, on later reviewing his notes for ‘The Origin of Species’ realised that the birds had come from different islands in the archipelago, but it was Gould’s eye for detail which played an important part in the conclusion the naturalist came to concerning evolution.

Though his Victorian public were awe-struck by the apparent skill he showed in the reproductions in his bird books the underlying truth about John Gould was rather different. The buyers of his books were led to believe that he was a gifted ornithologist and illustrator, but Gould was no artist. He was actually perpetuating a caddish deception upon his readers when he had absolutely no need to mislead them.

The myth was perpetuated partly through a crafty captioning of the pictures in a way that suggested that he and his wife Eliza were the co-illustrators responsible for them. Certainly Eliza Gould was responsible for some of the lithographs in the books. But the truth is that the brilliant hand-coloured pictures were mainly the work of others, and the main illustrator was not mentioned at all. Some of the lithographs featured were even the work of Edward Lear! Gould is said to have worked these illustrators unreasonably hard, though he had no need to resort to the pretence of being a competent artist; his genuine reputation as an ornithologist would have stood by itself, as his knowledge of birds was second-to-none.

Furthermore, John Gould was far more a shrewd businessman than an accomplished draftsman and one with a very mean streak. His avian knowledge assisted Darwin in conceiving the theory of evolution, yet he would brazenly lie to dealers to save himself the expense of a new specimen, borrowing it instead for an artist to draw before returning it unvalued. Gould seems to have believed that his books would have greater appeal if they were considered the work of his genius alone. And almost certainly he intended that the general public and the scientific establishment would believe he was as much bird artist as bird expert.

But if Gould was miserly and deceitful in business he was a genteel and affectionate father in his family life. After Eliza’s early death he reveals in a surviving letter to another correspondent a heartfelt concern for his offspring’s welfare, writing that he “wanted to do the best for my dear little children.” But to Edward Lear, himself riddled with insecurity he was “a queer fellow who meant well, though a more singularly offensive-mannered man hardly can be.”

Gould’s life is now well told in a biography by travel writer Isabella Tree. In ‘The Bird Man: the Extraordinary Story of John Gould’ the author suggests that it was insecurity about his lack of education which lay at the root of Gould’s predisposition to deceive and plagiarise.

But bird fanciers have him to thank for one more legacy: he was responsible for introducing the budgerigar into Britain.

What the Papers Said

In January 1901, the captain of a Spanish steamer died after his ship was swept against a breakwater in Portland Roads. The lifeboat was manned and launched but could not get near the breakwater on account of the sea which was being swept by a violent gale.

The steamer named the Encourt, was from Bilbao and was bound there in ballast from Rotterdam. The crew of 26 were taken to the breakwater fort, and later on board another Spanish vessel. Their ship was badly holed and lay with a list, and sank in nine fathoms of water with the skipper on board.

Along the coast, the seas were high in West Bay, where a boat sank in the harbour. The gale blew down trees, took the roofs off houses, and made the streets dangerous.

Watchnight services had been held in the churches, reported the ‘Bridport News’ of January 1901. There the last moment of the dying year and the opening of the new, were spent in worship and in the parish church the hymn ‘O God our help in ages past’ was sung. Services were also held in the Wesleyan, Baptist and Unitarian chapels.

Meanwhile, far away in South Africa the Boers were making determined attacks and British officers were being killed and wounded. During a fog the Boers were repulsed with a loss of 24 killed including four officers.

In New York, influenza was raging, and a typical headline was: ‘Grip’ reigns in New York.’ Grip was the popular name for ‘flu. It was estimated that nearly 200,000 people in and around the city were suffering from it and it was now in an epidemic state all over the country. Even President McKinley was a sufferer but was recovering.

A great century of progress had closed, with momentous events concerning the British Empire. It was hoped that the enemy would lay down their arms. Dorset had provided horsemen and foot soldiers, meanwhile the Ashanti campaign had been brought to a close in West Africa, and an international force had defeated the aims of the Boxers in China.

Many Bridport bluejackets were in the thick of the fighting in the attempt to relieve Peking. While down under, Lord Hopetoun had been appointed the first Viceroy of Federated Australia. The Indian famine called for public subscription, and Paris had held its great exhibition, though at this point in history Great Britain had more friends in Germany than France. Away East, the Spanish had lost the Philippines to the United States.

Here in this country, the Conservatives had been returned to power and Lord Salisbury was Premier. Dorset again returned a quartet of Conservative members. Mrs. Gladstone, widow of the famous Prime Minister, was buried beside her husband, and the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan, called the greatest of British composers and a marvellous musician, had occurred. He was buried in St. Paul’s. The Bridport paper reflected on all this news.

On that south Dorset coast and going back a century, on August 19, 1800, three women and an infant were struck by lightning, and the infant, who turned out to be the fossilist Mary Anning, was resuscitated by being put into a warm bath. What would have been lost to archaeology if she had not been put in that bath?

Early in the 19th century fossils began to attract local geologists, especially John Crookshanks (alias Lock,) who committed suicide in 1802 because his yearly stipend for collecting fossils was discontinued! And Richard Anning (father of Mary) fell over the Charmouth cliffs by night, did not kill himself, but died soon after, in 1810, of consumption.

It was in the following year, 1811, that Miss Anning found her famous ‘crocodile’ fossil, and sold it to Mr H. Henley, lord of the manor, for £23. It was later presented to the British Museum.

The population of Lyme in 1800 was 1,535; in 1810 it was 1,925. In 1803, three seats were set up a yard from the precipice above the sea beyond the churchyard. The Church Cliffs in those days formed “the great place of resort, the Mall of Lyme, where the belles of the place and the sons of the aristocracy enjoyed the sea breeze.” There was no marine walk then.

People in the early 1800’s were still talking about  “a very singular fish” 14 feet long with a tail three feet wide, a circumference of six feet, and with long jaws, which came into the Cobb and was taken. In 1803 a great fire destroyed 42 houses near the Independent Chapel. It started at a baker’s.

In 1817, a breach of 192 feet was made in the southwest part of the Cobb, and several vessels were driven ashore or sank. The Cobb had to be repaired, and work costing well over £30,000 was carried out in the next nine years. Between 1810 and 1816 the annual average of vessels entering the Cobb harbour was 318.

We should be making a mistake if we thought that indecency offences were new: that Bridport paper at the beginning of the 20th century reported that at Weymouth County Police Court in early 1901 a sub-postmaster was summoned “in several instances for such offences of a serious character against young men.”

And a Royal Commission had been appointed to make investigations regarding the “beer poisoning epidemic.” Sickness and death had been caused in England and Wales through poisoning by arsenic.

Mary Anning – Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis

Visitors to the Dorset resort of Lyme Regis in the 1820’s would most likely have noticed a diminutive brunette in a dark dress with cloak and bonnet, holding a basket in one hand and a claw-hammer in the other, picking her way over loose boulders wasted from the cliff. Probably they little realised that they were watching Mary Anning, and her business on the shore in those distant days was more than just a past time. The girl was out beach combing – not for the man made artefacts of her own time, but the astonishing profusion of fossils being weathered out by wind and waves from the wasting cliffs.

The girl began in a small way, collecting the numerous bivalves locally known as “Devil’s Toenails” (Gryphaea) and the bullet-shaped shells now known as belemnites (the skeleton of an early form of squid) but popularly called “Devil’s Thunderbolts.” Other popular names for the various fossils were “Ladies Fingers” “John Dories” or “Crocodile Bones.”

Mary was born in the town in 1799, the daughter of Richard Anning, a man living a lowly existence as Lyme’s carpenter and cabinetmaker. The family was not wealthy, and Richard and his wife (also called Mary) and their two children spent much of the time living on parish relief. Looking for a means to supplement his income, Anning conceived the bright idea of collecting and washing the myriad fossils to be found along the beach, to sell to tourists. Daughter Mary was a bright girl who took an intense interest in her father’s collecting. Before she was ten years old, she too was going out onto the beach with hammer and basket, the intention being to increase her father’s sale stock displayed outside his shop. In these forays her brother Joseph was often to be seen at her side.

Her first big break however, came in 1810 when she was eleven. In that year Richard Anning and Joseph discovered what seemed to them to be the head of a crocodile, worked loose from a recent cliff-fall. The carpenter felt certain the rest of the skeleton must have been left behind in the cliff, so he advised Mary to watch out for it when out on her regular collecting forays. But only a few months later her father was dead. In the meantime Mary continued to collect from Black Ven and Charmouth beaches. Then four months after her father’s death a violent storm caused a landslide, and the much prized “crocodile” skeleton was revealed. Mary skilfully traced out the fossil, hiring help to transport it, but it was several years before the 30-foot long creature was reconstructed.

What Mary had found was the first in a series of marine vertebrate finds which would make her name. It was in fact an Ichthyosaur, a now extinct marine reptile of the Jurassic period. Mary sold the Ichthyosaur to a Mr Henley for £23, a man who in turn would later sell it to the British Museum for twice as much. The specimen is now in the Natural History Museum. Ichthyosaurs were reptiles with a dolphin-like body, paddles, a fish-like tail and large eyes, but without a neck.

The next big find came in 1811, when Mary and Joseph unearthed the first Plesiosaur, a creature broadly similar to Ichthyosaurs, but having a long flexible neck and larger rear paddles. It could reach up to 40 feet in length. This skeleton first went to a natural history museum in Piccadilly before being purchased by the British Museum in 1819. In 1824 Mary made the discovery of the first Plesiosaur in perfect condition, though this specimen was much smaller than 40 feet. She sold this specimen for £120 guineas.

But there was to be another remarkable find in 1828; not a sea reptile this time, but a flying one. With a wingspan of 4 feet (up to 26 feet in an adult) this was the first Pterosaur, a creature called Dimorphodon, to be discovered virtually in tact. The fourth finger of each hand was elongated and supported a flight membrane. Dimorphodon probably flew by gliding.

Mary made the last important discovery in 1832, when another fine specimen of a 30-foot Ichthyosaur emerged from the Jurassic clay on the shore. On this occasion an amateur was accompanying her. This is now in the Natural History Museum, Kensington.

The fulcrum of Mary Anning’s collecting and discoveries was principally the need to make a living in hard times. As she searched Mary encountered many other people higher up the social scale than herself, who were nevertheless interested in her work. The Annings were poor, but on one occasion they did have a lucky break when Lt.Col. Birch of Thorpe Hall in Lincolnshire, hearing of Mary’s work and the family’s plight, gave the Annings £400 from the sale of his own fossil collection. She made the friendship of two sisters called Philpott, who often came to Lyme Regis to collect fossils themselves. Two men in particular, Sir Henry De la Beche, who founded the Geological Museum and School of Mines, and William Buckland, a clerical West Country geologist were influential in winning for Mary her enduring reputation and success.

In Mary’s day Lyme was becoming a popular resort and collectors were finding rare curiosities. The Anning fossils were regularly being bought by visitors arriving off the horse-coaches at the Pilot Inn. But the growing interest in the ancient animal remains was at a time when geological knowledge was in its infancy and very much framed within literal interpretation of the Bible and Creationist orthodoxy. The fossils being collected by Mary Anning and others were considered to represent thousands rather than millions of years, or were perhaps the remains of creatures, which perished in Noah’s Flood. Over the course of her short life, Mary’s work would make her well known and respected by many famous geologists of the day. She was aware – possibly ahead of her time – that fossils were not just curiosities, but were things of greater significance in the understanding of life on earth in its remoter antiquity.

Mary’s later years were spent in relative comfort. But she had never been robust, and by 1845 she had become morose and ill tempered, a trait which may have led to her becoming a lone beachcomber. The underlying cause of her disagreeable nature was probably the cancer, which was eventually to kill her. Nevertheless, this did not prevent her worth being appreciated by the scientific establishment, and she was elected a member of the Geological Society in recognition of her help to geologists of her day.

After her death in 1847 a stained glass window was dedicated to her memory in Lyme Church.

A Day Out at Lyme Regis

“Lyme doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a quiet seaside resort with a small fishing and pleasure boat harbour. The hilly countryside above it is like parts of the Cotswolds. In many ways the place hasn’t changed in 1,200 years.”

The speaker grew up in Lyme Regis, which is nearly in Devon, and often does a three hours drive to get there for a week in a hotel. He reminded me that ships sailed to meet the Spanish Armada from Lyme, where a stone rampart sticks far out to sea at the Cobb.

So I had to see Lyme Regis.

Starting from the church, I walked down the hill and found myself outside the Pilot Boat Inn, where once the landlord’s dog gained fame by licking the face of an apparently drowned sailor and brought him back to life. The sailor was from the torpedoed battleship “Formidable,” which went down in the bay in 1915. It is a friendly place, but the bartender I spoke to knew nothing about the dog or the battleship, although the walls were lined with pictures of ships and even the tablemats have a nautical theme.

Outside again, among painted houses and too much traffic for comfort, I could tell where the beach was from the smell of the salt-laden air. So I strode out across the sand and shingle for the Cobb, to the west, the tiny port with a forest of masts and stout walls of Portland stone.

It is too shallow for larger shipping, but once it saw a trader loose her ropes and set sail for nearby Charmouth, anchoring in the bay to await King Charles II who was fleeing to France. The next part of the story may have originated in a local bar-room, but it is said the skipper’s wife, fearful of revenge by the Roundheads (for sympathies were with them here) locked him in his cabin so that he could not get to either anchor or wheel.

On the way to the Cobb I passed a few gay awnings, rows of electric bulbs, the odd hot-dog and ice-cream stalls, but nothing more ostentatious that that. Fifteen castles, mermaids and other marvellous creations from sand awaited the competition judges and people gingerly picked their way around them to admire.

Hereabouts are cannons pointing out to sea and a 10-foot anchor given by the former Portland Navy Base “in memory of Lyme Regis men and women who made their living from the sea.”

People were fishing off the sea wall for “flatties” and two boys from Seaton and Axminster emerged from the falling tide in wetsuits, intending to do some snorkelling on a full tide. And all the time a sea mist hung over the town above the beach – an indication, I was told, that Lyme was in for a hot period. “It always happens,” said the ice-cream lady. And so it was to prove.

Beyond the Cobb is a beach where the Duke of Monmouth came ashore with his men in 1685 to lead a revolt against King James on religious grounds, only to be defeated at the Battle of Sedgmoor in Somerset. A dozen of those men from Lyme who joined him were hanged where the inhabitants of the town could see their bodies. Very ugly. Worth comparing with violent times today.

The Old Watch House looks out over Lyme Bay – and now the mist lifted, revealing dramatically high cliffs along the coast to the east. Upper and lower promenades lead back to the town centre three quarters of a mile away. Once there, a little way back up the hill is the parish church of St.Michael the Archangel, with its centuries-old-Flemish-woven tapestry and its three-foot model of a lifeboat with sails and oars, circa 1925.

Only 20 yards beyond the east wall are the Church Cliffs, where the sea has eroded the land over the centuries. The cliffs have to be stabilised from time to time: the church itself goes back to Saxon times, when the building must have been far from the sea. The view on a fine day stretches from the Cobb to Golden Cap Cliff, and the Isle of Portland, a lady in the churchyard told me.

In the museum at the bottom of the hill I learned of the town’s decline as a port in the 19th and 20th centuries, after 600 years, as ships became larger. Yet even today it has a boat building yard. Passing through the town names like Marine Parade are seen, continuing the maritime theme.

Back on the beach I went for my second ice-cream, while people changed in tiny plastic beach tents to go into the sea, most only paddling. I saw no more than 30 people paddling and swimming at once along the whole beach. Then the sun came out again.

As it happened, it was Lifeboat Week, and parachute, helicopter, lifeboat and coastguard displays had been set out, with some spectacular flying by the RAF Red Arrows and even a tug o’war between coastguards and life boatmen. A smugglers tour, fireworks at sea, illuminated boats and a Yetties concert were designed to keep up the interest. The stage sound system belted out the decibels, and Lyme let its hair down.

“The Pearl of Dorset,” they call Lyme Regis. It hasn’t been commercialised as larger resorts have, yet it is not under-developed as a coast attraction like the neighbouring seaside place of Bridport’s West Bay is. Lyme was on a major Roman road, was a besieged Roundhead fortress, and 50 years ago was described as “a quaint old-world place nestling at the foot of the hills.” I don’t think my friend from the Cotswolds would disagree with a word of that.

Here we are on the Jurassic Coast, with outstanding geology attracting people with hammers: world famous fossil-hunting country and the South West Coast Path. Here is a fully restored working water-mill, and Gun Cliff, where artillery once sent away a raiding ship with a single shot.

Besieged in 1644, it is peaceful today with galleries, cafes, craft and antiques shops. Yes, the “Pearl of Dorset,” everyone seems to agree.