Lyme Regis in December
Dec. 28th, 2024 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puddleshark
I was re-reading Persuasion over Christmas, and Jane Austen's descriptions of Lyme Regis gave me such a desire to visit the town and to walk along the Cobb again that even the weather forecast ("Grey today. Grey tomorrow. Grey forever.") failed to deter me.
Lyme Regis is a charming town, which, by some miracle, mostly escaped the blight of twentieth century town planning. It still has its narrow twisty Georgian streets.
This is the main road into Lyme. The double-decker bus into town has to navigate this narrow corner somehow without knocking into the overhanging bay windows. (When I used the park and ride this summer, I was deeply impressed by the steely nerves of the tiny young woman driving the bus).
Click to go to Flickr, and zoom in on the sailor and mermaid above the door.
There were some fabulous Christmas displays in the little shops.
Lyme Regis is an arty town, full of galleries and craft shops, little independent boutiques and bookshops.
It is so arty that even the amusement arcade had a pair of Burne-Jones' angels.
I thought that, arriving at 8am in winter, I would have the town to myself. But of course it is the Christmas holidays. The cafés were already open and busy with customers. Even the little seafront kiosks were open, and doing a roaring trade (albeit in coffee rather than ice creams). Lots of people strolling along the sea front, bathing in the sea. (Cold water bathing, fashionable in the Regency period, has recently returned to fashion.)
Bathing costume and bobble hat.
Such pretty seaside villas. Most of them are holiday cottages - a peak inside one here
The trademark pastel-painted beach huts and ammonite street lights. The beach huts are gorgeous when the sun is shining (but you'll just have to take my word for it).
Past the lifeboat station...
By the harbour...
And onto the famous Cobb. In the centre, the infamous stone steps down to the lower wall. (Not wanting to re-enact Louisa Musgrove's accident, I stayed on the upper wall).
The first written mention of the Cobb is in a 1328 document describing it as having been damaged by storms. Originally constructed from oak piles driven into the seabed and infilled with boulders, the Cobb has been destroyed or severely damaged by storms several times. It was swept away in 1377 which led to the destruction of 50 boats and 80 houses.
Much of what we see of the Cobb today was constructed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries using massive blocks of Portland stone. The southern section, extending beyond the enclosed harbour dates from the 1790s; the High Wall was constructed in 1819-1820 and further strengthened following damage from heavy storms in 1824...
The harbour seems tiny by modern standards, but it made Lyme Regis a major port, the second largest in Dorset in the 14th century. By Elizabethan times Lyme ships were sailing all over the known world - to Africa, the Mediterranean and the Americas. In 1677 Customs receipts remained greater than those at Liverpool. But the Cobb eventually became too shallow for larger ships and declined from 1700 on.
https://lovelymeregis.co.uk/explore/thecobb
There's quite a camber to the surface of the Cobb. Don't think I would want to walk there on a windy day.
A fellow visitor kindly doing the Casper David Friedrich thing.
As I wandered slowly back towards the harbour, I was joined by a little flock of Turnstones, who wandered on slowly ahead of me, not much bothered by my presence.
A racing gig out in the bay.
Black Ven (named for a local cliff) making her way back into the harbour. Note the cannons on the harbour wall. I presume they are ornamental. No-one was firing on the gigs.
Black Ven, Rebel and Daring.
Making my way back through the town to the car park, I got sucked across the road and into a bookshop by some sort of strong literary force, and they just happened to have a copy of Wendy Cope's Collected Poems on the shelves, and I just happened to have a very creased bank note in my camera bag. It was fate, obviously.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-28 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-29 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-28 09:25 pm (UTC)I miss living near the ocean and so I especially enjoy your visits to the seaside.
Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel; I practically have it memorized because I've listened to an audio-book version so often.
Happy walking!
no subject
Date: 2024-12-29 11:20 am (UTC)Persuasion is one of my favourites too. I've lost count how many times I have read it. Perhaps one of these days I will take a trip to Bath as well...
no subject
Date: 2024-12-29 10:52 pm (UTC)A grey day, but worth the trip.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 10:02 am (UTC)I think there is a slipway on the side of the harbour. The rowers were floating the gigs onto trailers, and then pushing the trailers up the slipway. Everyone had their trousers rolled up, but seemed to be wading through the lovely warm December seawater rather than deep mud.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 05:43 pm (UTC)Not that there's any persuasion required to reread Persuasion.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 05:58 pm (UTC)Nope — far and away my favorite Austen.
(Short shameful confession: after the first three times I read Emma, I’ve only ever finished it when I had to for a class.) (Which was twice more.)
no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 09:09 pm (UTC)Yup. In other news, I loath humiliation-based "humor."
no subject
Date: 2024-12-30 09:14 pm (UTC)