The Cobb at Lyme Regis, Dorset

The Cobb at Lyme Regis, Dorset

Meryl Streep - and the Cobb at Lyme Regis - feature on the cover of The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles...

I recently visited Lyme Regis, right on the western edge of Dorset where it meets Devon, a county Lyme seems to gravitate towards, rather than looking back through masses of green countryside towards the east of its own county.

I went there hoping to look for fossils, thinking of my childhood heroine Mary Anning, but in September 2011 it’s the 200th anniversary of her ichthyosaur find, so I will leave it until later to blog more about her and about fossils.

Instead, I will look this time at the Cobb, a harbour wall that featured in Jane Austen’s Persuasion and more recently in John Fowles’ book The French Lieutenant’s Woman – it was made even more memorable by the image of Meryl Streep standing, windswept, on the said wall in the movie.

I bought an old second-hand copy of the book to read while in Dorset. I like it, as it is penned in the style of a 19th century writer but with the benefit of Fowles’s insights from the perspective of the 20th century. The French Lieutenant doesn’t really feature, but the Woman of the title is vilified by the polite people of Lyme because of her indiscretions with him in the past. And then it becomes a romance between her and a fossil-collecting man about town…

But back to the Cobb. On the very first page of the book Fowles writes:
The Cobb has invited what familiarity breeds for at least seven hundred years, and the real Lymers will never see much more to it than a long claw of old grey wall that flexes itself against the sea.

The Cobb has existed since at least the 13th century, originally as a defence made of oak piles driven into the seabed and filled with heaped boulders. But the structure we see today, made of Portland stone, was built in 1820. So Jane Austen, who died in 1817, would have been visualising a slightly different wall.

It is certainly an irresistible attraction to tourists today. We visited on a scorching hot blue-sky day in August and as a result did little more than walk along Marine Parade, along the Cobb to the end and back again. And we were already worn out. Come walk with me…

Old houses on Marine Parade in Lyme Regis

A close-up of the old plumbing...

Old sundial...

Sitting down already…

Looking east from a shady shelter on the seafront at Lyme Regis - note the ammonite design of the street lamps

The Front Beach and Marine Parade at Lyme Regis

The end of Marine Parade next to the Cobb, Lyme Regis

The harbour at Lyme Regis, Dorset, looking east from the Cobb

Another view of the harbour at Lyme Regis, Dorset - those cliffs to the east yield fossils...

Lyme Regis harbour, small marine aquarium in the middle, the Cobb on the right

Lyme is old enough to have been mentioned in the Normans’ Domesday Book of 1086. By the 13th century it was a major port and King Edward I allowed the town to add “Regis” to its name in 1284 with the granting of a royal charter.

In the English Civil War, in 1644, the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) held out for eight weeks at Lyme Regis when besieged by the Royalists.

I had wondered why there is a “Monmouth Beach” at Lyme. It turns out the Duke of Monmouth landed here in 1685 at the start of his rebellion against James II. The Duke (James Scott) was leading a Protestant revolt against James’s Catholic rule after he took over from his older brother, Charles II. Monmouth was an illegitimate son of Charles and thought he had a good claim to the throne himself. It didn’t end well for him – Bloody Assizes and all that…

Looking west from the Cobb at Lyme Regis, towards Monmouth Beach

The curve of the Cobb at Lyme Regis, Dorset

One thing that surprised me about the Cobb is that the top surface is sloping from the harbour side down to the outer sea. So it would be positively dangerous to stand here in wet and windy weather!

The Cobb is made of Portland stone, full of fossils.

Fossils under foot on the Cobb, Lyme Regis

Portland screws (conical gastropod Aptyxiella portlandica) and osses' 'eads (bivalve Laevitrigonia gibbosa)

The end of the Cobb at Lyme Regis

Looking back at Lyme Regis from the end of the Cobb

Looking back along the Cobb, towards Monmouth Beach

John Fowles, although born in Essex, lived out his later life in Lyme Regis and was curator of the museum from 1979 to 1988.

Lyme Regis Museum - where I saw Mary Anning's ichthyosaur, but that's another story...

Tourist Information Centre at Lyme Regis, just off Marine Parade at the opposite end to the Cobb

Lyme Regis - that red-brick building towards the right is the museum

Bridge Street, Lyme Regis

The steep Bridge Street and Church Street hill up to Charmouth Road, Lyme Regis

Old buildings abound in Lyme Regis

And another one - the London B&B, presumably a former inn

And finally - a lovely little house name plate decorated with old shells...

There’s some more about Lyme Regis on Wikipedia and the tourism site has a good guide in PDF form – which will show you all the attractions of Lyme I missed on my very brief visit. Must go again!