Dorset is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi), Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The county town is Dorchester, in the south. After the reorganisation of local government in 1974, the county border was extended eastward to incorporate the Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch. Around half of the population lives in the South East Dorset conurbation, while the rest of the county is largely rural with a low population density.
Mary Anning was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset in Southwest England. Anning's findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, 25 miles (40 km) west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Heritage or Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. The harbour wall, known as The Cobb, appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman and the 1981 film of that name, partly shot in the town. A former mayor and MP was Admiral Sir George Somers, who founded the English colonial settlement of Somers Isles, now Bermuda, where Lyme Regis is twinned with St George's. In July 2015, Lyme Regis joined Jamestown, Virginia in a Historic Atlantic Triangle with St George's. The 2011 Census gave the urban area a population of 4,712, estimated at 4,805 in 2019.
The Isle of Portland is a tied island, 6 kilometres (4 mi) long by 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) wide, in the English Channel. The southern tip, Portland Bill lies 8 kilometres (5 mi) south of the resort of Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A barrier beach called Chesil Beach joins it to the mainland. The A354 road passes down the Portland end of the beach and then over the Fleet Lagoon by bridge to the mainland. The population of Portland is 12,797.
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles (154 km), and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.
The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for 630 miles (1,014 km), running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises and falls with every river mouth, it is also one of the more challenging trails. The total height climbed has been calculated to be 114,931 ft (35,031 m), almost four times the height of Mount Everest. It has been voted 'Britain's Best Walking route' twice in a row by readers of The Ramblers' Walk magazine, and regularly features in lists of the world's best walks.
Seaton is a seaside town, fishing harbour and civil parish in East Devon on the south coast of England, between Axmouth and Beer. It faces onto Lyme Bay and is on the Dorset and East Devon Coast Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A sea wall provides access to the mostly shingle beach stretching for about a mile, and a small harbour, located mainly in the Axmouth area.
The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia, and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the world, with an international reputation in the fields of natural history and anthropology. It was first conceived and developed along the contemporary European model of an encyclopedic warehouse of cultural and natural history and features collections of vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, as well as mineralogy, palaeontology and anthropology. Apart from exhibitions, the museum is also involved in Indigenous studies research and community programs. In the museum's early years, collecting was its main priority, and specimens were commonly traded with British and other European institutions. The scientific stature of the museum was established under the curatorship of Gerard Krefft, himself a published scientist.
Charmouth is a village and civil parish in west Dorset, England. The village is situated on the mouth of the River Char, around 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north-east of Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council estimated that in 2013 the population of the civil parish was 1,310. In the 2011 Census the population of the parish, combined with the small parish of Catherston Leweston to the north, was 1,352.
Lyme Bay is an area of the English Channel off the south coast of England, situated between Start Point in the west and Portland Bill in the east. The south western counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay.
The Undercliff is the name of several areas of landslip on the south coast of England. They include ones on the Isle of Wight; on the Dorset-Devon border near Lyme Regis; on cliffs near Branscombe in East Devon; and at White Nothe, Dorset. All arose from slump of harder strata over softer clay, giving rise to irregular landscapes of peaks, gullies and slipped blocks, that have become densely vegetated due to their isolation and change of land use. The Kent coast at Folkestone and Sandgate also has similar undercliff areas.
Temnodontosaurus is an extinct genus of ichthyosaur from the Early Jurassic period. They lived between 200 and 175 million years ago (Hettangian-Toarcian) in what is now Western Europe and Chile. They lived in the deeper areas of the open ocean. University of Bristol paleontologist Jeremy Martin described the genus Temnodontosaurus as "one of the most ecologically disparate genera of ichthyosaurs".
Dapedium is an extinct genus of primitive neopterygian ray-finned fish. The first-described finding was an example of D. politum, found in the Lower Lias of Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic Coast of England. Dapedium lived in the late Triassic and Jurassic periods.
Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset, was the first pictorial representation of a scene of prehistoric life based on evidence from fossil reconstructions, a genre now known as paleoart. The first version was a watercolour painted in 1830 by the English geologist Henry De la Beche based on fossils found in Lyme Regis, Dorset, mostly by the professional fossil collector Mary Anning. De la Beche had the professional artist Georg Scharf produce lithographic prints based on the painting, which he sold to friends to raise money for Anning's benefit. It was the first depiction of a scene from deep time to see even limited publication. The print was used for educational purposes and widely circulated in scientific circles; it influenced several other such depictions that began to appear in both scientific and popular literature. Several later versions were produced.
Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is a privately owned fossil museum in Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. The museum is located in a historic Grade I listed former congregational church building.
Lyme Regis Museum is situated in the town of Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. It is a registered charity under English law.
Jurassica was a planned visitor attraction in a disused quarry on the Isle of Portland, near Weymouth in Dorset, southern England. It was based on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, and as a subterranean geological park, would have largely presented the prehistoric world. The attraction's location was chosen as Yeolands Quarry, a now disused quarry that was operational until the 21st century by Portland Stone Ltd. The quarry is 36 metres (120 ft) deep, 90 metres (300 ft) wide, and is on the eastern side of the island just south of The Grove village.
The Charmouth Mudstone Formation is a geological formation in England. It preserves fossils dating back to the early part of the Jurassic period (Sinemurian–Pliensbachian). It forms part of the lower Lias Group. It is most prominently exposed at its type locality in cliff section between Lyme Regis and Charmouth but onshore it extends northwards to Market Weighton, Yorkshire, and in the subsurface of the East Midlands Shelf and Wessex Basin. The formation is notable for its fossils, including those of ammonites and marine reptiles and rare dinosaur remains. The formation played a prominent role in the history of early paleontology, with its Lyme Regis-Charmouth exposure being frequented by fossil collectors including Mary Anning.
Adrian Gray is a British artist who creates stone balancing sculptures. His career started in 2002.
The Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliffs, also often referred to in the singular as the Undercliff, is a 5-mile (8.0 km) long landscape feature, National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest that connects Seaton and Axmouth with Lyme Regis on the south-west coast of England. Like its namesake on the Isle of Wight, this feature arose as a result of landslips, where a slump of harder strata over softer clay gave rise to irregular landscapes of peaks, gullies and slipped blocks. Because of the resulting difficulty of access and change of land use, the undercliff has become densely vegetated, and has become a rare and unusual habitat for plants and birds.
