Ken Gollop (centre) with Dale Thomas (left) and David Clement (right) from the South West Maritime History Society.

Ken was presented with a cut glass paperweight by by Dale Thomas, the society’s chairman, in recognition of his maritime researches and his long service to Lyme Regis Museum. The ceremony was held at the Brunel Centre at the SS Great Britain in Bristol.

The first regional award was given in 2008. So far there have been seven recipients, two of them now from Lyme. Peter Lacey got an award in 2008 for research for his book on the Maritime History of Lyme Regis which will be published in 2011, in the middle of the Year of Maritime Lyme.

The launch will take place at the museum on May 20.

Anyway, did you know that there is a new local brewery? Nothing like on the scale of the mob at the top of West Bay Road but still brewers for all that.

I came across their wallop whilst investigating the wares of the old striped cat in the Bridport street where the soldiers used to hang out. There the pump stood, on the bar, proud as punch and twice as attractive. Cobb is the name of this tipple and it comes all the way from the Town Mill in Lyme Regis.

Neither did I, but apparently it’s a new set up and is a micro brewery, which, I assume, means that you can fold it up and slip it away in your pocket when you’ve finished knocking out the old essentials of life for the day.

The Town Mill Brewery in Lyme Regis

As a true connoisseur of these things I can tell you, if you will excuse the technical term, it is not half way bad. In fact it is, as we experts describe, a really decent drop of slurping juice.

Nor am I the only one to hold this opinion. The landlord tells me that it is winning a lot of favour with his regulars and looks set to become a permanent feature in his dispensary of the necessities.

I must admit that the fact that it was local first attracted me. Then I tried it and would honestly choose it purely on the excellence of the brew. So here’s strength to your arms at the Town Mill Brewery – you keep churning out the medicine and we’ll keep on taking it.

Editor’s Note: For the benefit of readers not quite so familiar with the beerography of Bridport , The Red Bladder was visiting The Tiger in Barrack Street. The brewery at the top of West Bay Road is Palmers. I just made the word beerography up.

The eastern side of Lyme Regis. The existing sea wall is to be encased inside a new one.

A £20 MILLION scheme to protect the eastern side of Lyme Regis from landslides and the sea has been approved by West Dorset District Council.

Work is needed to save nearly 150 homes from destruction, as well as the Charmouth Road car park, the parish church and major underground pipes and cables.

A landslide on the eastern side of Lyme Regis. Properties at Church Cliffs can be seen in the top right-hand corner. Photograph copyright Nigel Mykura, reused under Creative Commons License.

West Dorset District Council Leader Robert Gould said: “The main elements of the current proposals include a new sea wall, slope stabilisation and landscaping, habitat restoration and management which are all crucial for the future of the town.

“The district council is committed to providing long-term security for Lyme Regis and the people who live and work there.”

An application will now be submitted to the Environment Agency for Government approval and funding.

The building of a new 390-metre long sea wall is unlikely to start before Spring 2012, because of the need to allow time for final Government approval, detailed design, tendering and preparatory contracts including environmental mitigation.

When work does start, it will take up to two years.

After that, attention will turn to the final phase of the long-term coastal protection strategy for Lyme Regis, which will focus on The Cobb.

To read more about what’s planned, click here

Since the earliest time any major scheme could start is in Spring 2012, and since work is likely to take two years, engineers are now racing against the clock and the sea. 

That is why planners at West Dorset District Council are being urged to approve plans next week for a project combining a new sea wall, slope stabilization, and landscaping, habitat restoration and management.

Lyme Regis needs a new sea wall and slope stabilization

Otherwise, officers warn in a report to councillors, “about 144 houses, Charmouth Road Car Park, much of Charmouth Road and Church Street and major underground pipes and cables are at risk of destruction or serious structural damage within 50 years.

“A few properties are expected to be lost within 5 years.

“Many other properties would suffer structural damage, loss of services or loss of access.

“Failure of the existing Church Cliff sea wall, which has an estimated residual life of about 10 years, would be accompanied by landslips that would immediately threaten several properties and Church Street.”

The parish church of St Michael the Archangel, Lyme Regis

Among the buildings that could be lost is Lyme’s Grade A Listed parish church.  

New sea wall to include existing wall

Engineers want to protect Lyme Regis by building a new 390-metre sea wall, described as sinuous, solid and uncluttered. This concrete structure would encase the existing wall. On top would be a 3- metre-wide walkway for pedestrians, wheelchair users, and maintenance and emergency vehicles. There would be seating on the cliff side, and three sets of steps down to the beach.  

Proposed slope stabilisation techniques include soil nails, pile-retaining structures, sub-horizontal drilled drains, also known as raking drains, trench drains, toe drains, and cut-off drains (“deep continuous drains installed at specific locations to intercept groundwater flow into the landslide – effectively ‘cutting off’ the supply of water that lubricates the landslide”).

The scheme has been broadly welcomed, although Lyme Regis Town Council’s planning committee regrets that the beach is not to be replenished, “with, as a consequence, the potential loss of the popular beach walk to Charmouth.”

Vandalism versus views

People living close to a proposed viewing area are also concerned about noise, litter and vandalism.

Officers note in their report to councillors; “The perception is that this facility will become a general ‘recreational’ area, rather than just a viewing platform, and will adversely affect the amenity of adjoining neighbours…

“If it is to proceed then the occupants of Bay View Cottage have asked that they be protected by a ‘substantial fenced buffer zone’ within the viewing area.”

But officers say that “it is commonplace to see areas of public open space immediately abutting the boundaries of private residences, and there is nothing particularly unusual about the current proposals in that regard.

“And a viewing area in this location would be a fabulous public amenity, offering tremendous views of the Jurassic Coast, with easy access from Charmouth Road Car Park.”

The scheme will be considered by councillors on April 8. It will also have to be aproved by the Government.

Work could start in spring 2012. It would probably take two years to complete.

THE LYME REGIS fossil hunter Mary Anning has been named by the Royal Society as the third most influential female scientist in British history.

The move comes as yet another book is published about Anning, once an almost entirely forgotten figure.

The Canadian novelist Joan Thomas has written a novel – out next week – called Curiosity.

“The material was so rich,” Thomas is quoted as saying in The Winnipeg Free Press. “I knew hers was a story that would resonate today on many levels.”

It seems indeed that Anning’s time has come.

The Royal Society’s list of the top ten women in British history who have had the most influence on science has just been compiled to celebrate the Society’s 350th anniversary  and its commitment to the advancement of women in science.

Anning’s name is potent in this respect because, as the Society’s citation reads in part, “Anning’s gender and social class prevented her from fully participating in the scientific community of early 19th century Britain, and she did not always receive full credit for her contributions.

“Despite this she became well known in geological circles in Britain and beyond, although she struggled financially for much of her life.

The Royal Society’s judging panel consisted of Professors Lorna Casselton, Athene Donald, Uta Frith and Julia Higgins, all Fellows of the Royal Society, and Dr Patricia Fara, an eminent historian of science.

Anning’s finds included the skeleton of the first ichthyosaur to be recognised, the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found, the first pterosaur skeleton found outside of Germany, and some important fossil fish.

Her observations – as the Royal Society notes – also played a key role in the discovery that coprolites, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilized faeces.

The implications of all these discoveries are among the aspects of Anning’s life that fascinated the novelist Joan Thomas. Put simply, fossils made people question the Christian story of creation. How could it be true if fossils showed there had been on life on earth before the Bible said there had been?

Thomas thinks Anning’s modern-day fame stems from the international symposium, organised by John Fowles, that was held in Lyme Regis in 1999. This was attended by such influential figures as Sir David Attenborough, who described Anning at the time as “a very remarkable woman”.

While Fowles himself, Thomas says, described Anning as the “secret inspiration for the char­acter of Sarah Woodruff in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

The front cover of Joan Thomas's book is from a watercolour, imagining what Dorset might once have been like, by the geologist Henry De la Beche

Thomas’s book is subtitled “A Love Story“. It imagines another Lyme Regis fossil collector Henry De la Beche as the object of Anning’s affections. De la Beche also features in The Lymiad, an anonymous poem from 1818 soon due to be published by the Trustees of Lyme Regis museum – which is sited, in a final twist, exactly where Anning used to live.

Over the winter, masses of fine sand and stone particles have been blown by easterly winds along the shoreline, picked up by sea currents, and deposited in the harbour mouth.

To reverse this process, around 2,000 cubic metres of material will be dredged from Monday, 29 March to Thursday, 1 April, for about two hours either side of low tide.

That’s roughly from around 10am to 3pm, though times could vary by up to 30 minutes, depending on tides.

Two tractor excavators will dredge; three dump trucks will transfer what’s removed to the beach beyond Lucy’s Jetty, where tides will disperse it naturally.

West Dorset District Council’s harbour master Grahame Forshaw and his assistant will help direct boats in and out of the harbour while work takes place.

Mr Forshaw said: “Lyme Regis is a drying harbour. This means that at low tide, the harbour is completely dry.

“So these works will allow local boat owners to access the sea for longer.

“We will have to regulate access quite carefully while the work is being carried out, so we thank people for their patience in advance.

“The sand has been tested to make sure that it is clean and is not contaminated.”

District council leader Robert Gould said: “We want to take advantage of the low tides before the Easter bank holiday, when we are expecting large numbers of visitors to Lyme Regis.

“If we did not take the sand away now, boats would not be able to get to Victoria Pier at certain times of day.

“We apologise for any inconvenience.”

For more information please contact the harbour master on 07870-240645.

A spread from the bound manuscript of The Lymiad: One of the treasures of Lyme Regis Museum

HERE are some short extracts from The Lymiad, a series of eight verse letters written from Lyme Regis in 1818, never before published in their entirety, but now due to be issued by the Trustees of Lyme Regis Museum, if enough subscribers come forward to help pay for the book.

To find out more about that, you can click on this link to see another story on this site, by Margaret Rose.

But for now, with some brief notes based on ones supplied by the museum, here are some brief excerpts.     

Say, is there not the motley group among,

One generous bard, one gentle “child of song”

To celebrate thy wonders, matchless Lyme!,

In all the wild luxuriance of rhyme? …

Inspired by the genius loci – the spirit of the place – the anonymous author takes it upon himself – or herself? – to celebrate Lyme Regis. The Lymiad’s eight letters consider in turn the streets and lodgings of the resort; the sea and beach; the civil war siege, and the landing in Lyme by the rebellious Duke of Monmouth; the assembly rooms; the Mayor and worthies; scenery and bad weather; and departure. Margaret Rose tells me, incidentally, that people involved in the publication of The Lymiad are trying to work out who the author might have been.

That “Blood-red flag” which gaily floats

On the full-swelling breeze, denotes

The Conrad, Sir Fopling Fossil’s pride;…

He is the most accomplished youth,

That is, if Madame Fame speaks truth;

And more than this I cannot tell,

But some who know Sir Fopling well,

Inform me he’s a F.G.S.

Sir Fopling Fossil – isn’t that a wondeful name? – is probably Henry de la Beche (born 1796), who grew up in Lyme Regis, and aged 21, became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. So The Lymiad, written in 1818, is pretty up-to-date. Henry de la Beche knew and supported the great Lyme Regis collector Mary Anning and in 1830 painted this tremendous fantasia of Dorset in ancient times when dinosaurs swarmed open-mouthed through the elements.

A more ancient Dorset: Watercolour by Henry de la Beche

In 1835 de la Beche became the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, and in 1848 he was properly knighted.

Pencilled notes on in The Lymiad’s Dramatis Personae suggest de la Beche’s earlier poetic identity as Sir Fopling Fossil.

Finally, for now, there is a passage about elections.

Know then my friend, since last I wrote,

Here hath been pass’d a day of note,

When ‘tis the fashion to declare,

Who next shall be our worthy Mayor.

This day is honoured every year

By presence of a noble peer, …

The town of voters hath but few;

So few, that at th’Election last…

Th’Electors, and elected too,

In one horse chaise appear’d to view:

Lyme was a rotten borough in the control of the Fane family, whose head was the Earl of Westmoreland. There is a poetic link here. If memory serves, William Wordsworth was appointed in 1813 as Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland, a sinecure then worth about £400 a year (£250,000 today).  

There’s a most interesting story behind it.

In 1978 the artist Laurence Whistler gave this bound manuscript of a poem, some 80 pages long, to the Lyme Regis Philpot Museum, where it is on display. The author John Fowles had at this point just started his ten-year stewardship at the Philpot  as Honorary Curator. From the outset he regarded The Lymiad as one of the museum’s most precious possessions – for its verve, wit, and satirical humour; its vivid evocation of the manners and pastimes of a small Regency resort; and above all for its acute observations of the town, its people, and their preoccupations.

 Sadly, John Fowles died in 2005, so he never saw his dream of The Lymiad’s publication brought to fruition. Now the Museum’s Trustees have re-visited the project, in consultation with Mrs Sarah Fowles, his widow, and plan to launch a new edition of the manuscript; not a facsimile of the original, but designed as it might have appeared had it been published in 1819 – some 200 pages, soft-back, but with stitched pages and card covers marbled in the Regency manner.

 The edition will contain:

• An essay by John Fowles on “Lyme in the early 1800s’, published in 2003 from his original introduction
• A general introduction and textual note by John Constable
• A transcription of the text
• Editorial notes by John Fowles, John Constable and Jo Draper, the former curatorial consultant at the Museum.
• Illustrations from the Museum’s rich collection

The cost of the entire project is estimated at £4000. Some funds have already been raised, and it is hoped to raise the balance by 100 individual subscriptions of £20, the names of all those subscribing to be recorded in the publication.

For further information on this fascinating project contact Mary Godwin, the Museum’s Curator, on 01297-443370, or e-mail curator@lymeregismuseum.co.uk

*In 1997 the manuscript caught the attention of Dr John Constable, then Professor of English Literature at Kyoto University. Over the next few years he checked and studied the transcript and wrote the introduction.

In his words:  “The Lymiad emerges as a highly political and a thoroughly Whig poem, with some leanings towards the left of that party though stopping short of Radicalism itself.”

In view of Lyme’s political history, some may be surprised that “it stopped short of Radicalism itself”!

The move is announced on the papers’ website but not (that I can see) in the papers themselves.

The shift means the two Newsquest publications will come out on the same morning as the free newspapers View From Bridport, View From Beaminster and View From Lyme Regis.

“The Bridport News and Lyme Regis News moving to Wednesday is purely for operational reasons relating to available press slots,” says Toby Granville, editor of the Dorset Echo, who also oversees the two weeklies.

View From editor Philip Evans comments (via Twitter): “@RealWestDorset By moving to a Wednesday publishing date they lose their only exclusive news day to the View. Great decision – for the View!”

Analysis

Myself, I think there are three things worth remarking on.

One: when the News did first move from Friday to Thursday that was done to compete more directly with View From titles and the Western Gazette (which comes out on Thursdays). Yet I know people who still dislike that shift intensely and refuse, as a matter of principle, to buy the News on a Thursday, because they believe it should still come out on a Friday. That’s a powerful testament to the strength of the connection that the News had with people, and to the force of habit. It’s Friday: it’s Bridport / Lyme Regis News day. Friday was a crucial part of the papers’ brand identity. Changing to a Thursday affected that, but perhaps moving to a Wednesday will not, particularly, because the first move was the one that showed the brand could be tampered with. Like ITV’s News at Ten; there are people who have never seen that in quite the same way since ITV began moving it around…

Another comment via Twitter: “oninbridders @RealWestDorset Bridport News belongs to Friday, a nice way to end the week, sort it out @Dorsetecho. Though at this rate it will loop back”

Two: it will interesting to see what effect it has, three editions of the View From and two editions of the News coming out on the same day, midweek. All sorts of permutations are possible. Good for the View because people might choose to pick up a free paper rather than pay for one that is now covering exactly the same last week? Good for the News because it’s got more pages at the moment than it’s had for years and people might think that a paid-for publication is always going to be superior to a free? Or good for them both because, if you’re in the shop, why not get them both? Neither is going to want to have exactly the same content as the other so they should (in theory) both get better and more various.

Three: and what of the 60p Western Gazette, which fewer people in West Dorset seem to care about these days, despite the best efforts of its local reporter Danielle Hoffman? (It was noticeable, for example, that she turned up for the recent South West Quadrant appeal hearing whereas no one from the News was seen – a situation that people commented upon.) Alas for the Western Gazette, it won’t have much of an “exclusive news day” to itself on Wednesdays because the deadline for its West Dorset edition is late on Tuesday. Oh well.

Postscript

View From Publications are now planning something for Fridays called the View Online Dorset Weekender – “a brand new weekly paper you’ll only be able to read online!”

The report, commissioned by Palmers Brewery from Forum Heritage Services, also says that the back of the building ‘is built upon an earlier building of some considerable historic and architectural interest’.

Historic buildings consultants Sam Hale and James Webb mention the theory that a sketch of the Cobb by the young JRR Tolkien was drawn from a room at The Three Cups, but fail to uncover any new evidence that clinches the location for certain.

Did Tolkien once sit here?

The appraisal was carried out in November 2009 and comprises a visual survey of the building, reference to historic maps and documentary research into the building’s associations, which was undertaken at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester. Additional information was kindly supplied by John Dover of Lyme Regis Museum.

Nigel Jones of Chesterton Humberts, property agents for Palmers, said: ‘The report provides a thorough background to the building’s history. As a result of this report and the earlier report confirming the non-viability of the property as an hotel, Palmers are currently consulting widely with the local community to find a way forward for the site which is commercially viable.’

Editor’s Note: As before, given the editor’s links to Watershed PR, who are acting for Palmers Brewery, this press release is reproduced as it first appeared, aside from the photo and caption. Comments are very welcome, especially  from anybody able to provide evidence relating to Tolkien’s connections with The Three Cups.

The full historic buildings report can be read by clicking on this link.