Beach sea and horizon with boats
Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and 25 miles (40 km) east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast 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. The town was home to Admiral Sir George Somers, its one time mayor and parliamentarian, who founded the Somers Isles, better known as Bermuda. Lyme Regis is twinned with St. George's, in that Atlantic archipelago. well-known for "The Cobb", a harbour wall full of character and history. It is an important feature in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion (1818), and in the film The French Lieutenant's Woman, based on the 1969 novel of the same name by local writer John Fowles. The Cobb was of economic importance to the town and surrounding area, allowing it to develop as both a major port and a shipbuilding centre from the 13th century onwards. Shipbuilding was particularly significant between 1780 and 1850 with around 100 ships launched including a 12-gun Royal Navy brig called HMS Snap.[3] The wall of the Cobb 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 it was larger than Liverpool. The town's importance as a port declined in the 19th century because it was unable to handle the increase in ship sizes. It was in the Cobb harbour, after the great storm of 1824, that Captain Sir Richard Spencer RN carried out his pioneering lifeboat design work. 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.
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Location: Lyme Regis Dorset UK
Photo credit: © Freddie Jones / Alamy / Afripics
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