New guide to Lyme Regis: Exploring with 'Lesser Known Lyme Regis'

This is the perfect time of year for enjoying Dorset’s seaside. A new book just published,  Lesser Known Lyme Regis, delves into a side of Lyme Regis you might not know, with commentary from local people and six easy-to-follow guided walks with maps.

It’s rather like having your own personal guide. Author Joanna Smith lives in Lyme Regis, where she runs the Black Dog Writing Group. She spent two years researching the book.

‘So much has been written about the town’s history, literary links, walking trails and fossils, but I wanted to write a comprehensive guide that brings all these facets of the town together.’

The bizarre 'moonscape' known as the Ammonite Graveyard, Monmouth Beach 

‘The book includes interviews with dozens of local people such as fishermen, artists, fossil hunters, historians and wreck divers, which give a real insight into contemporary Lyme and explain why it’s such a vibrant place’.

Liz Martin, a volunteer miller at the Town Mill, weighing out freshly milled flour.

Like Lesser Known Weymouth and Lesser Known Swanage, two other titles in the series published by Roving Press, the book will appeal to locals as well as visitors. It takes you on a personal tour to reveal the quirkier side of Lyme Regis.

Vantage point on Bell Cliff. The Georgian cannon was retrieved from the Cobb in 1974 where it had spent many inglorious years as a mooring post, stuck in the harbour floor near the Gin Shop.

Lesser Known Lyme Regis is available in local outlets and direct from Roving Press (www.rovingpress.co.uk, tel 01300 321531), priced £11.99.

Copyright Julie Musk 2014