UNEARTHING A GLORIOUS SPOT
For this reason, Lyme Regis is already one of the UK’s ‘fossiling’ hotspots, part of a prolific 96-mile seaboard that extends through Dorset from Studland Bay, and then into East Devon. This is the Jurassic Coast, a Unesco World Heritage Site formed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and offering about 185 million years’ worth of geological history.
Lyme’s about to become even higher-profile, however, thanks to the release of Ammonite in cinemas from October 16. Francis Lee’s award-tipped movie sees Kate Winslet portray the real-life figure of Mary Anning, a 19th-century fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist.
While Anning’s romance with Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) in the film is fictitious, Lee is otherwise mostly true to his main character: her criminal lack of recognition, her pioneering discoveries – including the world’s first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton – and her residence in Lyme Regis, where the movie was shot.
I don’t find any complete ichthyosaurs, sadly, but Paddy does help me turn up two still-joined pieces of their vertebrae, plus numerous coiled ammonite – extinct marine molluscs – shells and parts of the guards of squid-like belemnites. He then summons a ‘geologist’s hammer’ and chisels open some rocks to reveal still more ammonites. Sifting among the foreshore for treasure proves much fun in an absorbing, peaceful way, and Paddy is terrific company – funny, informative, interesting and, crucially, unpatronising.
The beaches for his daily walks are chosen according to prevailing conditions; another week, we might have gone west on to Monmouth Beach, where a natural ‘ammonite pavement’ scored with shells up to 70cm in diameter awaits beyond the iconic Cobb – Lyme Regis’s ancient, curving harbour wall.
I recognise it from scenes in the film; ditto old parts of Lyme at Broad Street’s basin. Used by Lee’s set designers to portray Anning’s house, number 7a has since become Anning’s Fossils, complete with fauxweathered frontage and, like many shops here, impressive petrified finds to buy.
Yet this is no town of old fossils in the demographic sense. Its pastelshade corniche beach huts might be a bit tatty yet Lyme itself feels vibrant and alive. After resisting busy Red Panda’s Asian street food, I peek into sharply designed clothing, fudge or homeware boutiques. The old watermill hosts a tourable microbrewery and seaweed d pressers Molesworth
& Bird’s shop-cumgallery (molesworth andbird.com).
Back on Broad Street is The Pop-Up Kitchen, which hosts chefs for residencies of days, weeks s or months. You’re as likely y to encounter paella as pizza za (thepopup.kitchen). Metres s away, its most successful ex-resident, Harriet Mansell – also seen on 2020’s Great British Menu – will open her permanent venue, Robin Wylde, on October 28. The tasting menus will champion West Country produce (robinwylde.com).
I’m more than con content to eat at The Alex Alexandra (see box), with t the British food here uncompli uncomplicated yet impressive. My main of venison alongside shallots, cavolo nero, mash and a truffly jus proves pleasingly autumnal. So, a day later, does the weather, now squally and foreboding as a taxi ferries me to Axminster’s train station, the nearest. Paddy will be chuffed.