Essential Hotels > England > Dorset > Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis is a pleasant port town on the south coast of Dorset, west of the larger towns of Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth and close to the Devon/Dorset border. Lyme Regis has an extensive heritage, starting from humble beginnings as a Saxon settlement on the mouth of the River Lim. Humbly noted in the Domesday Book, by the 13th century the village had grown to become a significant port town. During this time it received a royal charter from King Edward I, thereafter being known as Lyme Regis. Although relatively small by modern standards, the port at Lyme Regis was at one time one of the busiest harbours in the UK. Its heyday was reached between the 16th and 18th centuries, when its international trading status meant that it rivaled Liverpool in terms of importance. Alongside Poole, Lyme Regis made Dorset incredibly powerful in terms of water trade.

One of Lyme Regis’s most famous features is the Cobb, its man-made harbour wall. It was first constructed using oak and stone in the 14th century, and it has been destroyed by storms and remade several times over the centuries. The Cobb has also contributed to Lyme Regis’s literary reputation thanks to its use as an important element in influential works of romantic literature. In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Louisa unwisely throws herself off the breakwater in an attempt to woo Captain Wentworth, and in The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, Sarah’s lonely hours staring at the sea from the Cobb capture the attentions of Charles Smithson.

By the 1800s, Lyme Regis’s primary industry had changed from its port to the burgeoning tourist trade. This was promoted by the Georgian and later Victorian trend for constitutional trips to the coast, which was thought to cure all manner of ills. Lyme Regis is still a popular holiday destination today. In addition to its traditional buildings and charming style, it attracts guests due to its position on the Jurassic Coast. The Jurassic Coast has been designated a world heritage site because of its rock formations, spanning hundreds of millions of years. The area around Lyme Regis is considered particularly significant for its paleontological remains, which have appreciably furthered knowledge about the dinosaurs.