Charmouth

What better recommendation could you give the seaside village of Charmouth than the fact that it was Jane Austen’s favourite resort? ‘Sweet and retired’ she called it. To quote Arthur Mee, ‘She loved the splendid sweep of country all round it, the downs, the valleys, the hills like Golden Cap, and the pageantry of the walk to Lyme Regis’

Charmouth remains an attractive little place with a wide main street lined with Regency buildings, and a quiet stretch of sandy beach that gradually merges into shingle. This part of the coast has yielded an amazing variety of fossils, many of which can be seen at the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. The Centre provides information on fossils, fossil hunting and the local coastal and marine wildlife. Facilities at the centre include interactive computers, hands on displays, marine tanks and a video microscope. The centre is run by three wardens who, throughout the season, organise a series of guided fossil-hunting walks and rockpool rambles along this scenic stretch of the Jurassic Coast.