Jane Austen’s Lyme Regis

I haven’t seen the new movie version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (and the depiction of Anne Elliot in the trailer didn’t inspire confidence), but one thing I have to say about all the movies is that they take us to two amazing locations in England: Bath and Lyme Regis. Of the two, Lyme Regis was Jane Austen’s favorite, and I did a research visit there last year, so I thought I’d share some of the highlights.

Lyme Regis is a pretty, little harbor town on the coast of Dorset facing the English Channel. It’s named for the River Lim. The countryside is very hilly (so much so that the train doesn’t come to the town, but stops at inland Axminster instead) and the town is part of the “Jurassic Coast,” so-called because of the many fossils found there. In fact, J.R.R. Tolkien spent many boyhood visits in Lyme, and it’s said that the region inspired some of the settings for Middle Earth and a fossil he found there gave him the idea for the dragon Smaug.

Fossils are everywhere along the beach. Some are protected natural resources like this one, but in some areas, you’re free to go rockhounding. The 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning was from Lyme Regis and began her study of fossils with those she found along the cliffs and beaches.

This is the house on Lyme’s high street where it’s believed that Jane Austen stayed with her family when she visited in 1803 and 1804. You can’t tell from the picture, but it’s actually very close to the beach.

A view of Lyme’s high street showing its two old inns, the two buildings across from each other with the bow windows. The Three Cups is on the right. This is where Tolkien stayed when visited (he sketched images of the harbor from its windows) and is also considered to be the inn mentioned in Persuasion. Jane’s house in Lyme is just beyond it. Across from the Three Cups is the Royal Lion.

This is the Cobb–the curving sea wall that protects Lyme Harbor. You can walk on top of it (dangerous in stormy weather when the wind makes it treacherous and the waves can wash up that high) or on the lower portion shown here. This is where Louisa Musgrove’s accident takes place in Persuasion.

Tennyson supposedly asked to see the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell when he visited the Cobb at Lyme. We don’t know for certain which stairs Jane Austen intended, but many people believe it was this treacherous-looking set, called the grandmother’s teeth (I tend to think they would have gone down the tamer-looking ones closer to the beginning of the walk, but these are some pretty interesting old steps–I did not try climbing them!).

This view shows Lyme Harbor and the Cobb in the distance from the museum located where Mary Anning’s house once stood. The area where the cars are parked once housed an assembly hall where Jane Austen probably went dancing when she visited Lyme.

An old painting in the museum shows what the Lyme assembly hall looked like, located right above the beach. I think it would have been a wonderful place to go dancing.

My gaslamp fantasy, An Elusive Dragon, is set in Dorset and Lyme Regis, and I let my characters go dancing at the assembly hall, dine at the Royal Lion, and meet an alternate version of young Mary Anning. I hope Tolkien would have approved of my addition of living dragons, though they’re not as ferocious as Smaug.