Curving harbour wall of Austen and fossils.
Lyme Regis is a steep seaside town on the Devon border, wrapped around the curving stone breakwater called the Cobb. Mary Anning grew up here in the early 1800s and found the fossil sea-creatures in the blue-clay cliffs that helped rewrite the story of prehistoric life. Jane Austen set a scene of Persuasion on the Cobb, and John Fowles opened The French Lieutenant’s Woman there. Charmouth and its fossil beaches lie just east.
