At least she used to. Mary Anning, the woman for whom the tongue twister was originally written, was the first to discover and identify a dinosaur in England. She grew up in Lyme Regis, where she and her brother learned about fossils and paleontology from their father. And since she lived during the Regency era, she’s had one mention in one my our books, The Gossip of an Earl.

We spent the night at the bed-n-breakfast, The Dower House, in Rousdan. With fluffy soft towels, a comfortable bed (the best we’ve slept in so far on this trip), an excellent breakfast, and gracious hosts in Neil and Rosemarie, this is the place to stay should you ever find yourself along the Jurassic Coast.

We spent the late morning down on the waterfront in Lyme Regis. Starting at The Cobb, where a medieval seawall still helps protect that part of coast, we made our way along the upper garden walkway and then finally down to the beaches.

The beach and cliffs from which Mary extracted most of her fossils is at the other end of the Lyme Regis, a comfortable walk on this day as it wasn’t raining and, despite the wind, it was warm.

The Gold Cap, just to the left of the photo above, is shown here. The entire coast is made up of Jurassic-era fossils, some newly exposed when the tide goes out.

They say if you find a fossil among the rocks, you can take it; however, most of those rocks are really heavy! This one measures over a foot in height!

We took our leave of Lyme Regis just before noon. Next stop: Knightshayes.