"... a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the
immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better."
Persuasion
England 2015 Trip Journal
Tuesday, April 14
We have certainly seen charms in the environs of Lyme and do wish to know it better – so, happily, Jane would not find us strange strangers. :)
We had a beautiful drive through the Hampshire and Dorset countryside, making the two hours spent in the car go by very pleasantly. I can imagine that all of those green rolling hills we drove through are what the Dashwoods would have seen on their way to Barton in
Sense and Sensibility. I could almost see Marianne going for a rainy walk on one of them!
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| The perfect hill for Marianne... |
Even though we arrived in Lyme after 1:00 there was still thick fog around the shore line.
But in the last few hours it cleared up brilliantly! We parked in the Charmouth Street Car Park, which is a good size, along with having brilliant views when there isn't 200-foot visibility in the fog.
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Walking through the streets of Lyme.
(Can't you just see the Musgroves, Captain Wentworth and Anne driving along to their inn?) |
The first thing we decided to do was to walk down through the town to the pebbly beach for lunch, seeing as we were hungry, and it
was lunchtime. There was a
festive holiday atmosphere by the shore, with kids from 2 to 102 eating ice cream from the several ice cream stands nearby and
sitting on the beach. It was actually pleasant enough for most of them to shed their sweaters!
While we were enjoying our sandwiches we were joined by a rather forward seagull. Mom kept throwing pebbles at him, but it didn't seem to perturb
him in the least because he returned at least three times to screech at us for not sharing our lunch with him.
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| Lyme's foggy but festive seafront. |
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| It was still a lovely day for a picnic! |
I had to walk down to the sea to "linger and gaze" as Anne Elliot does, and as Jane Austen did over 200 years ago. I have never heard a sound
like the waves rolling over and over those pebbles, sending out thousands of
little knocks all along the beach as they jostled together. It is musical; the
perfect place to sit and think (or quote poetry with Captain Benwick).
"The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and
melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves on
the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a
first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all..."
We passed some houses along the shore in the cheerful colors typical of the festive English seaside resort: white, yellow, pink, blue and more, and two of them were cottages with names perfectly suited to Lyme: Harville Cottage
and Benwick Cottage. I think Jane would smile. She wouldn't have expected the novel she wrote to be one of the claims to fame for this seaside resort that she came to visit for summer holidays.
After passing the cottages we popped into an antique emporium on our way to the Cobb, and when we emerged the sun had dispersed the fog and was shining everywhere! The Cobb is something that must be experienced before one can appreciate its full value. As Jane points out, it is the views from the Cobb that are so beautiful – the Cobb itself was only built as a harbor defense in the middle ages – but we could see the cliffs "stretching out to the east of the town" and Charmouth across the sparkling bay. The view of the Cobb itself while you're standing on the Cobb are also what make it unique. One must walk along the top, admiring the way it curves left and then right, while the water quietly crashes against it.
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Venturing out on the Cobb – somehow we managed not to be blown off.
The slope felt a bit precarious, though. |
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| Selfies on the Cobb! |
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| There's nothing like it! |
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| Looking back along the Cobb. |
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| Enjoying the sun and the sparkling sea. |
I loved looking toward the cheerful town with the water sparkling so brightly in front of it. The surface of the Cobb does slope slightly westward, which inclines one to stay toward the east edge from the irrational fear of being blown into the water (or in my case tripping and falling...). But the views quickly banish any fear, as well as the excitement you feel at walking where Jane herself, as well as Anne Elliot, once walked.
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| Lyme looking like a seaside town! |
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| The scenery to the west of the Cobb. |
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| The shoreline to the west of the Cobb, where the Austens may have taken lodgings in 1803 or 1804. |
At no point on this trip have I more wished that I was wearing Regency garb than when we were walking along the Cobb. Which brings me to Granny's Teeth. There is no way Louisa Musgrove could have run up those steps before leaping into Captain Wentworth's arms. I climbed them, and they are truly terrifying and utterly precarious. Believing Jane to be a practical person, my guess is that Louisa ran up a different set of steps, located nearest to the end of the Cobb. I tested those, too, and had no qualms about running up and down - I did not attempt leaping off of them, however. For one thing, I had no wish to risk breaking my head, and for another, there was no dashing Captain Wentworth to catch (or, rather, miss me).
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| The most likely candidate for the scene of Louisa Musgrove's leap. |
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The terrifying Granny's Teeth...
It feels that the slightest mis-step will make you slip and drop right to the ground.
Louisa would not have needed to jump to fall – a step would have done it. |
We spent the entire afternoon walking on the Cobb, but eventually we got hungry. Happily, we heard that the world's best fish and chips was back at the end of the Cobb! It's called Herbies. So we got in the enthusiastic (but of course this is England so orderly) line (queue, I should say) to request our treasure. It took a while, but at last we had it in our hands and made our way up the hill just behind us to the city garden to enjoy our dinner with a stunning view of the little bay. Oh, that fish was delicious! Just the perfect amount of crispy, greasy and flaky.
The park was pleasant, with lots of local plants and gravel walkways, and although I was on the lookout for the Jane Austen cement bust I'd heard about, it was nowhere to be seen.
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| A bit of fish and chips by the sea. |
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| Our view for dinner! |
The sun was looking low when we descended the hill in search of tea. We found some in a lovely pub on the shore near the Cobb, and we couldn't resist getting some scones with clotted cream and jam to have with it while we sat on the cheerful crowded seashore. I took the opportunity to write a couple of postcards and catch up on this blasted but beloved journal.
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| Having tea by the sea. |
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| The Lyme seafront in the sunshine. |
After tea the Cobb was calling us irresistibly back for one last stroll. So we made our way down to the end of this medieval harbor defense to watch the waves crash quietly against the stone, with the gulls flying overhead and the sun setting behind the rocky cliff to the west. It was so peaceful and sad and beautiful - just like Jane's last masterpiece Persuasion.
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| Viewing a sunset from the Cobb. |
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| One last stroll on the Cobb. |
As we walked back to our car the sky changed into the soft, gentle colors of dusk, and we lingered so long drinking in one last view of the bay that it was nearly dark when we left the timeless charms of Lyme.
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| Lyme, it was an unforgettable day! |
© Anna Morton 2017
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