The Town Mill, Lyme Regis

In the lemming-like rush to the sea The Town Mill in Lyme is often overlooked. Hidden in the back streets of the old town it needs just that bit of effort to find but it's well worth it.

Snuggled around a cobbled courtyard, the working mill was first recorded in the Domesday book (of course) and continued grinding away until 1926. It remained empty and derelict until the inevitable plans to demolish and replace it with a carpark in 1991 inspired enthusiastic Lymers to band together to restore it. The result of ten years dedication was finally unveiled by John Fowles in 2001.

Now, once more the wheel clunks, thunks and turns; vibrating the whole structure making it feel like a living thing. Other living things, enthusiastic volunteer millers, meanwhile explain the mysterious workings that turn grain into the staff of life.
The rambling ancillary buildings are occupied by small craft businesses and a cafe as well as hosting not one, not two, but three galleries while behind it  lies an intimate little garden based on the original mill plans.

The forgotten world of the Lyme Regis landslip

                                                                                                                   Illustration by David Juniper

The open coast of Lyme Bay, with its fields, cliffs, and beaches, is like a sunny balcony facing south. This ends at Lyme town, tight up against the western end of Dorset. Beyond here, the way is blocked by a wilderness, which has been called the only jungle in England

It is almost impassable, though not quite: there is a precarious path. With a little imagination you could turn this into a fairy story: a seaside kingdom, ending at a mysterious forest, through which an adventurer penetrates to discover another land!

The Undercliff is a five-mile section of coast where the clifftops stand well inland, because the ground has broken away and falls in a long jumble to the sea. Because the layers of rock slope seaward and are lubricated by water, they keep slipping down over each other, rather like a tilted pack of cards.
The greatest slip happened on Christmas Day in 1839. Twenty acres of farmland split away, moving 300 feet out and down, and off the shore a reef was pushed up. The details were well studied by William Conybeare, a great geologist who happened to be vicar of Axminster. The reef disappeared, but the detached block, known as Goat Island, still had a sown wheat field on top, which next August was reaped by girls dressed as nymphs; and parties of visitors came to view the scene and take tea at Landslip Cottage. You can still see Goat Island and the Great Chasm behind it, though now obscured by trees.

In earlier times a small population was scattered through the Undercliff. There were grazing sheep and rabbits, charcoal-burners, several cottages. Over the past century it has been one of the few parts of England to become more wild instead of less. Perhaps it is haunted by its departed folk, and by the French Lieutenant’s Woman (Sarah Woodruff) who used to go walking in it, and the German prisoner of war said to have hidden out here, and whoever left the six-months-abandoned tent found by two children in 2003?

Under the forest canopy of oaks and ashes there is dense vegetation, ivy, wild garlic, horsetails, duckweed, badgers, foxes, adders, butterflies; 400 species of wildflowers have been recorded; various searches found 254 fresh-water invertebrates, 150 kinds of fly and wasp in five days, 89 kinds of lichen in one day.

At the Lyme end there are several ways in. From Monmouth Beach a path climbs beside a stream. From the Holmbush car park, a walk marked by pines joins the first path in a field, and they emerge onto a grassy hillside with a seat and a view down over the Cobb. From Ware Lane there is another footpath, also a gravel road. Last and most spectacular, from the upper end of Ware Lane a path goes past Ware Farm to the top of a fantastic spire called Chimney Rock. Here you are among the treetops, and you descend winding steps into their shadows.

All these ways unite in what is at first a wide earthen avenue into the forest. It doesn’t stay this easy! It becomes a thread along the tops of knife-edge ridges, between crevasses some of which are filled with bright green pools; later, it clambers with steep steps in and out of gullies. Much of the time you cannot see the sea, though it is not far below. About two miles in, you pass an old pumping station, once used to supply Lyme with spring-water.

Half way along, if you’ have had enough, you can take an easy path up a ravine, to emerge among the buildings of the Rousdon estate. This started as a mansion built by the rich grocer Sir Henry Peek; later it was Allhallows School. Peek had water pumped up from the Undercliff to fill his ornamental lakes; and when an Italian ship sank in the bay he had its cargo of marble statuary hauled up by donkeys to decorate his house.

But if you press on, after another mile and a half you are passing along the seaward flank of Goat Island. The path is sometimes runs close to the sea, sometimes steeply higher, and eventually it curves to brings you out of the Undercliff, to the top of a bright green valley, now filled by a golf course, down which there is a marvellous view across the estuary of the Axe to the tall white cliff between Seaton and Beer. From Seaton you could catch a bus back to Lyme.

By Guy Ottewell

Since Guy wrote this piece the dire weather of early 2014 means this fascinating classic walk is closed due to slippage. Hopefully it will reopen soon. I.D.

Capturing Dorset- J.W.T. Turner

FOR YOUR REGULAR DOSE OF DORSET ENTER YOUR EMAIL IN THE BOX ON THE RIGHT!

A surprising number of celebrated artists have visited Dorset over the centuries ( That isn't an invitation Damien...) 

Turner was a prolific painter and made many painting tours throughout Britain and the Continent.

Lyme Bay

He travelled almost every year and in 1811 toured the southwest producing a series of paintings which in turn were reproduced as a book of engravings entitled 'Picturesque Views of the Southern Coast of England.'

Poole Harbour

 While in Dorset, he painted many of the landmarks still recognisable today; including Corfe Castle, Lulworth Cove, Poole Harbour, Lyme Regis and Weymouth.

Weymouth Bay

Mrs Coade and the Everlasting Stone

Above Lyme Regis stands an elegant Georgian villa, once the home of the renowned novelist, John Fowles. Two centuries earlier it was the summer residence of Eleanor Coade.
Mrs Eleanor Coade was a rare species of woman almost unheard of in Georgian England; a female entrepreneur (the title 'Mrs' lent an air of respectability as she never married). 

Coadstone Manufactory at Lambeth

Born in Lyme in 1733 she moved to London as a young girl and in 1769 bought a struggling artificial stone manufactory on the banks of the Thames at Lambeth. In two years she had transformed the business by perfecting a product that  revolutionised the architectural landscape of Georgian England.

Atmospheric pollution from growing industrialisation was attacking the natural stone used to embellish buildings. To combat this Mrs Coade's factory created a new material that proved impervious to this harsh new environment, Coadstone. Coadestone was not only very resilient but retained extremely fine detail, making it perfect for the statuary and fine decorative friezes with which the Georgians loved.

13 ton South Bank Lion, 150 years old and
still in perfect condition stands on Westminster Bridge

The clue to Coadestone's unique properties may be found in its original name 'lithodiyra' meaning 'twice fired' in Greek. Whereas other artificial stone required a chemical reaction to set, Coadestone was a ceramic material made from a mixture of 'fortified clay' fired twice over a period of four days.

The new material was soon adopted by the finest architects of the day such as Nash and Soane; while landscape architects including Capability Brown used it to embellish the country parks of the wealthy . The firm also gained royal approval, Coadestone embellishing both the Royal Pavilion at Brighton and Buckingham Palace. Examples have been found as far afield as Russia and the Caribbean and range in size from 1 inch to 16 feet. 

Coadestone statues adorning St Pancras Parish Church

Mrs Coade died in 1821 and strangely, given the popularity of the product, the manufactory was to close less than twenty years after her death. Today the Royal Festival Hall covers the site of her factory and until recently the recipe for this seemingly indestructible material was lost. 

Unfortunately Mrs Coade did not prove to be as indestructible as her beloved Coadestone. Her final resting place in Bunhill Fields Cemetery, London was obliterated by German bombs in the Blitz.

On the other hand, Belmont, Mrs Coade's Lyme Regis retreat remains, still richly decorated with the artificial stone which made her famous. After lying forlorn and empty since John Fowles' death it is now being lovingly restored to its former glory by the The Landmark Trust .

Statue commemorating George III Weymouth

Dorset Museums 10-The Philpott Museum, Lyme Regis

She sells seashells on the seashore

The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure

So if she sells seashells on the seashore 

Then I’m sure she sells seashore shells

Mary Anning has become to fossils what bacon is to eggs... so notorious that she has even inspired the classic tongue twister written above.

Not everyone thought so as this letter displayed in the Philpott shows. It was sent from the British Museum in 1935 rejecting the offer of her 'commonplace' book (a miscellanea of personal writings) with the words -

'They are just the sort of extracts and jottings which a young lady of the period might be expected to make but have no lasting value' 

Could this be the man who also turned down the Beatles?...

Add caption

Dorset walks Pt.1-Lyme Regis circular walk.

6 miles 3hrs approx OS Explorer 116 Lyme Regis and Bridport
This easy walk can be wrapped in a morning leaving time for the beach in the afternoon.

Start at the excellent Town Mill then follow the Lim first by road then footpath along the old pack horse trail past Middle Mill. The route continues through fields and along footpaths eventually passing Rhode Hill House. This was originally the home of Alban Woodroffe, Lyme's great benefactor.

Further on the view opens up to give you a distant and unexpected view of a viaduct of monumental proportions.

Cannington Viaduct

This is Cannington Viaduct which was built in 1903 to carry the Lyme branch line from Axminster. It was the first viaduct to be built completely from concrete rather than brick. Like its classical Roman predecessors it now stands as a derelict symbol of another age and sold by the railways several years ago for the grand sum of a penny.
The route returns through leafy glades by the Lim.

6 miles 3hrs approx OS Explorer 116 Lyme Regis and Bridport

Forget 1066 and all that...here's Britain's last invasion

ENTER YOUR EMAIL ON THE RIGHT FOR YOUR DAILY DOSE OF DORSET

Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis, site of Britains last seaborne invasion.

The beach beyond the Cobb harbour in Lyme Regis has a wild windswept character, completely at odds with the more benign tourist beaches nearer to the town. It makes a fitting location for Britain's very last seaborne invasion. One dark night in June 1685 a small fleet of ships landed a duke and 83 determined followers.

The duke was the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who was pledged to wrest back the throne from his Catholic uncle King James II. 

As he stumbled up the rough shingle Monmouth's spirits must have been high having been assured of enthusiastic support from the dissenting West Country. Very soon he'd gathered an army of 3000 supporters. 

After a few days in Lyme he marched on to Taunton and rather optimistically declared himself king. Soon, though, his luck began to turn as other planned uprisings failed to materialise. 

The turning point came soon after at Sedgemoor, on the Somerset Levels, where he met the Royalist army. The result was the route and massacre of his ill-equipped and ill-trained forces, so ill -equipped they were to give the rebellion its name- 'the Pitchfork Rebellion'. Monmouth fled the field dressed in shepherd's clothes. 

Maybe it was the crown, but his disguise fooled no one and he was soon captured.

Retribution came swiftly- hundreds were hung, drawn and quartered after being condemned in what became known as the 'Bloody Assizes', while Monmouth parted with his head.

Lyme Regis did not to go unscathed, eleven men were executed in a most diabolical fashion on the very the beach  which now bears Monmouth's name.

Dorset Museums 5- The Philott Museum, Lyme Regis

Hidden in Lyme's excellent museum is this entertaining historical scrap...
Cross the locals at your peril. It was as true two centuries ago as it is today. 
When a young, bushy-tailed Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, visited Lyme Regis in 1725 he fell head over heels for Sarah Andrews, a local heiress. There were just two problems; she was just fifteen and she was already spoken for. 
This  did not put off Henry who, aided by his valet, attempted to abduct Sarah on the way to church. Unfortunately, her local beau, John Tucker, along with a lot of other Tuckers thwarted the attempt, but not before punches had been thrown and charges brought.
Henry left Lyme soon after, bloodied but not bowed,  leaving the  note above as a final parting shot.
In case you can't decipher it reads:
'This is to give notice that Andrew Tucker and his son John Tucker are clowns and cowards
Witness my hand 
Henry Fielding'

Locals 1- Tourists 0, I'd say...

Painting Dorset- J.W.T. Turner

A break in this week's biblical deluges found me wandering along the beach at Charmouth. Later, as I looked at the photos I'd taken, a bell rang... yes!...One of my photos had been taken from a very similar spot to that from which my old mate Turner had painted his distant view of Lyme Regis way back in 1811.

Turner made many painting tours throughout Britain and the continent. In fact he travelled almost every year and in 1811 toured the southwest producing a series of paintings which in turn were reproduced as a book of engravings entitled 'Picturesque Views of the Southern Coast of England.' Many of those Dorset landmarks; Corfe Castle, Lulworth Cove, Poole Harbour and Weymouth are still recognisable today.

Not a perfect match...Turner said sorry, he'd have another go.

Holiday in a folly

High above Kimmeridge Bay, in the Purbecks, stands Clavell Tower, a folly built 1831 by the Reverend John Richards in an era when people who possessed money also possessed an equal amount of style. It stands perilously close to the cliff edge, making the most of the stunning coastline; so close that it was in danger of dropping off altogether. Then along came a saviour, the Landmark Trust, who, after rebuilding the tower 80 feet further inland, set about renovation. The result, unveiled in 2008 is now available for all to hire.

I really rate the Landmark Trust. I've stayed in a number of their properties and have never been disappointed yet. 
The Trust, closely affiliated with the National Trust, saves and renovates architectural gems too small for larger charities to deal with. After making them habitable, they breathe life into them once again by making them available as holiday properties. 
Staying in one is not a cheap option but it really is a case of getting what you pay for; the quality of renovation is always meticulous, the architecture fascinating and the stay unforgettable. They have around three properties in Dorset, many more across Britain and several abroad. They are currently restoring the late John Fowles home in Lyme Regis a Georgian maritime villa.
www.landmarktrust.org.uk

Dorset people 1- Marshall Stapleton

One afternoon Marshall Stapleton, invited by a local society, sat beside a row of the instruments he had made, ten of them: a guitar, a twelve-string guitar, a slide guitar, a mandolin, a bouozuki, a ukulele, an Appalachian dulcimer, and a few more we don't remember. Marshall, in his low-key way, described each and answered questions about it, then picked it up and played us a piece that brought out its qualities.

Where does he make these beautiful things? His workshop is a sight to see. It's a hutch-like upstairs room with a workbench and bandsaw and ten years' accumulation of tools, wood fragments, templates with guitar-shaped outlines, instruments in various stages of assembly. It could be as dusty and claustrophobic as the den of a mediaeval alchemist, but on a sunny day the windows at both ends stand open onto greenery. The only way in is a spiral iron stair, also stacked and hung with the materials of Marshall's trade, from a similarly crammed passage, which is almost all there is of the lower floor of the little building, to which you get by means of a path with a turn and a tunnel, from a gate in the side of a narrow lane. For the workspace Marshall has found is in one of those clusters of buildings tucked surprisingly behind Lyme's facades. (This cluster is said once to have been a cottage hospital, and the foundations of one of its outbuildings can be seen under the entrance passage.)

Just now Marshall has nearly finished an electro-acoustic guitar, and is in the early stages of a solid guitar - which will be heavy to hold: the guitar-shape is a solid block, so that it doesn't have the sound-box function it evolved for. In fact this block is centuries old wood, cut from a pew which St. Michael's church sold off. Marshall has covered the top with a layer of exquisite marquetry in a pattern based on sixty-degree angles. He obtains fine recycled wood from any sources he can.

When he first came to Dorset, he made hats, to be sold in a local shop (and he still makes clothes for friends); only after about three years did he return to musical instruments. In London he had taken evening courses and then gained a Higher National Diploma in musical-instrument technology from the London College of Furniture. "It took me", he says, "four years to make my first guitar." Now he makes one in about two weeks, if he sets his mind to it. His instruments sell for a thousand pounds or more though many he makes just for the love and to keep.
http://marshallstapleton.wix.com
(Interview by Guy Ottwell- guy@universalworkshop.com )

Surf's up!

As a Lyme resident I would be failing in my duty not to join all the other wannabes with a camera and record the wave lashed Cobb, still in one piece after several weeks of continuous pounding.
Less fortunate was the village of Fleet, near Abbotsbury. The village was safely situated behind Chesil Beach, or so it thought.
In 1824 a huge storm pushed waves over the shingle bank and all but wiped out the village. Only the church and a few gravestones remained. A new church was built soon after but the old survivor can still be seen. 
It was an ill wind or in this case, storm...The event inspired J. Mead Falkner to write the children's smuggling classic Moonfleet-an excellent read for man and boy.

Off the beaten track 1- The Cannington Viaduct SY338916

Ancient Rome? No... Railway Modern..
The Cannington Viaduct strides across this hidden valley with all the  self confidence of Empire; British though, rather than Roman, its monumental arches creating a breathtaking contrast with the soft green valley that surrounds it. 
You really don't have to be an enthusiast to admire this spectacular piece of railway architecture which was constructed in 1902 simply to carry the now-defunct Lyme Regis branch line. 
It was ground-breaking too, as it was one of the first structures to be cast entirely from concrete. Time passed, and like the Roman viaducts before it, so did its raison d'être when the last train rattled over it in 1968. Local folklore tells that it was supposedly sold to a bungee jumping company for 1p, though I've never known it used for that purpose. It is also sadly, a missed opportunity. The path of the old line that ran across it would have made a superb level cycleway between  Axminster and Lyme Regis. Sadly, encroaching gardens have put paid to that.
The best time to see it is early in the morning or in the evening when the golden light make it glow.
Much the nicest way to get there is the short 3.75ml walk detailed below.

BATTERED! The search for ultimate chippie 1

Lyme r

Fish and chips are ubiquitous; good fish and chips, like a good cream tea certainly aren't. Luckily for the world, but unluckily for my waist, I'm  undertaking a mission to discover the best Dorset has to offer. My first pick is not a million miles from my front door. The Coombe Street Fish Bar in Lyme Regis has been serving up the fried stuff for as long as I've been associated with Lyme and most of those portions seem to have been dished up by the owner, Vic. I began to wonder if he actually had legs as for years, I never saw more than his top half across the counter. Summer and winter, rain or shine, he was there  the steamy windows a glowing beacon for the hungry and chipless. 
While the owner displays true dedication, customer should display patience as every order is fresh cooked. The result being that the chips are all crunchy and the batter is all crispy. The portions are giant while  each chip is lovingly carved from real spuds rather the delivered frozen from the battery chip farm. You can choose to eat in on shabby chic Formica tables or make the world your stage and polish them off sitting on bustling seafront.