Marlene Wagman-Geller

Ye Olde Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once observed, “Clothes advertise the man.” Another litmus test into people’s souls is their choice of holiday. Do they head for the beaches of Hawaii, the ski slopes of Switzerland, the savannas of Africa? For those who love storied locales, a bucket list destination would be an exploration of geographical gems. The Paris-based UNESCO, (acronym for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization,) created its first World Heritage Sites in 1978 to preserve places of “outstanding universal value.” Currently, UNESCO sites transverse the spectrum from India’s Taj Mahal to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Of the 1,223 worldwide locales, the United Kingdom encompasses thirty-one of these cultural treasure chests, and  two have a connection to literary legend Jane Austen.  

Lyme Regis, in the county of Dorset, at the western edge of the Jurassic Coast- is a ninety-five-mile stretch of cliff-lined shore. The site became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001 due to its geological history that reaches back 185 million years. The isolated town of Lyme Regis received its name from its location on the Lyme River: in 1284, King Edward I granted it a royal charter that resulted in the addition of the royal term “regis.” The beach consists of thousands of rocks lashed by the waves of the English Chanel. Standing sentry are the blue Lias (blue from its color, Lias from the word for layers pronounced in a Dorset accent.) Locked in the limestone and shale cliffs reside creatures that swam the seas when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The individual most associated with Lyme Regis is Mary Anning, nicknamed The Fossil Hunter. Born in nineteenth century Lyme Regis, she sold fossils to tourists from Bristol, Bath, and London. Her first major success occurred when she unearthed an Ichthyosaurus, or “sea creature.” News spread of the twelve-year-old girl who had discovered a sixteen-foot, prehistoric skeleton of a hitherto unknown creature. The event created a tempest in the National Geographical Society of London as it challenged the prevailing belief that God’s creatures were immutable and eternal. Other fantastic finds followed: the first complete Plesiosaur and the first British Pterosaur. From her store in the Anning home, Mary sold her wares, and scientists flocked from London to meet “the fossil girl.”  One of her customers, Richard Owen, had coined the word “dinosaur.” When the King of Saxony stopped by, Mary informed him, “I am well known throughout the whole of Europe.” Mary’s internment was in St. Michael’s Parish Church; in tribute, the Fellows of the Geological Society contributed funds for a stained-glass window bearing the fossil hunter’s likeness. Although it took two centuries, Mary received posthumous recognition. London’s Natural History Museum designated an area “The Anning Rooms,” and the Royal Society named her as one of the ten most important British women in science. On the 223^rd anniversary of her birth, the Mary Anning Rocks Foundation hired artist Denise Dutton to fashion a bronze statue of the paleontology princess, her canine companion, Tray, at her feet, that overlooks the Black Ven Cliffs.

Perhaps the greatest memorial to Mary was the creation of the Lyme Regis Museum, built on the site of the Anning home. The crown jewel of the UNESCO holds 200 million years of history. From the museum’s floor-to-ceiling windows, visitors can enjoy a spectacular view of Lyme Regis Bay where the coastlines of Dorset and Devon converge on the Jurassic Coast. Dominating a wall is a diorama based on Henry de Beche’s 1830 watercolor Duria Antiquior (a more ancient Dorset.)”  In the foreground, an Ichthyosaur bites the neck of a plesiosaur. The lamp posts on the beach are in the shape of ammonites-shelled creatures that became extinct sixty-six million years ago. Despite all odds, the self-taught woman from a poor family of religious dissenters succeeded as a paleontologist. The tongue twister, “She sells seashells by the seashore” apocryphally relates to Mary Anning; however, she was far more than the girl who sold trinkets by the sea.

While Mary was scouring the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast for the creatures of yesteryear, novelist Jane Austen vacationed in Lyme Regis. The author wrote, “A very stranger it must be, who does not see the charms in the immediate environs of Lyme.” In one of Jane’s two trips to the coastal town, she wrote to her sister Cassandra that she had taken a box with a broken lid to the local carpenter, Richard Anning, (Mary’s father,) for repair. She added that she had not partaken of his service because she felt five shillings was “too steep a price.” Jane used Lyme Regis as a backdrop for a scene in Persuasion in which Louisa Mulgrave fell from the steps of the Cobb-a man-made fourteenth century harbor wall-into the arms of Captain Wentworth. Several television adaptations of the novel used the Cobb for an authentic backdrop. Lyme Regis holds an annual Jane Austen pilgrimage.

BATH-Hot water intermingles with 2,000 years of history in the spa town in Southwest England that received its unique name from its ancient Roman pools. Unlike most sites in Britain that the conquerors created as military garrisons, they utilized the natural springs as a place to rest between subjugating their enemies. Forgotten for centuries, in 1880 locals rediscovered the subterrain spring when extremely hot water leaked into their homes, a fact that put their town on the international map. Reputed to relieve ailments such as palsy and gout, rumor had it that the waters cured Queen Mary, the wife of James II, of her infertility. A less savory aspect were the curses that archaeologists unearthed during the excavation. Scientists discovered 100 of the hexes- inscribed on pewter- that centered on thefts that had occurred while the victims were bathing. One declared: "Docimedis has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and his eyes in the temple." Other ancient artifacts consist of mosaic fragments and a bronze bust of Minerva.

Interestingly, Bath’s UNESCO World Heritage Site refers to the entire city rather than a specific aspect. As testimony to the locale’s beauty and intrigue, the ancient town bears two listings in UNESCO World Heritage Site designations. The first entry, awarded in 1987, stemmed from the site’s Roman antiquities, and eighteenth-century architecture, buildings erected when the elite arrived to seeks cures from the subterrain springs. The second entry, awarded in 2021, arrived when UNESCO deemed Bath as part of The Great Spa Towns of Europe.

While Mary Anning was on the prowl for prehistoric bones, Jane Austen was writing satires on husband-hunting heroines. After visiting the spa town, the author mined it for locations to use in Persuasion. She wrote, “A very strange stranger it must be, who does not see the charms in the immediate environs of Lyme.” On one of her two visits, Jane interacted with Richard Anning, Mary’s father. In a letter to her sister Cassandra, Jane wrote that she had taken a box with a broken lid to the local carpenter for repair but declined Anning’s  services as she felt five shillings was “too steep a price.” The author used the locale as the backdrop for a scene in Persuasion in which Louisa Mulgrave stumbled on the steps of the Cobb-a man-made fourteenth century harbor wall-and into Captain Wentworth’s arms. Several television adaptations of the novel used the landmark in filming. Lyme Regis holds an annual Jane Austen pilgrim to immortalize the writer.

While Mary was scouring the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast for the creatures of yesteryear, novelist Jane Austen vacationed in Lyme Regis. The author wrote, “A very stranger it must be, who does not see the charms in the immediate environs of Lyme.” In one of Jane’s two trips to the coastal town, she wrote to her sister, Cassandra that she had taken a box with a broken lid to the local carpenter, Richard Anning, (Mary’s father,) for repair. She added that she had not partaken of his service because she felt five shillings was “too steep a price.” Jane used the locale as a backdrop for a scene in Persuasion in which Louisa Mulgrave fell from the steps of the Cobb-a man-made fourteenth century harbor wall-into the arms of Captain Wentworth. Several television adaptations of the novel used the Cobb for an authentic backdrop. Lyme Regis holds an annual Jane Austen walk where participants follow in her footsteps. A tour guide points out the vacation home she stayed with her brother Henry and his wife, as well as scenes she incorporated into Persuasion. The tour also encompasses the guide reading passages from Persuasion that mentions Lyme Regis, "the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the Walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing machines and company...are what the stranger's eye will seek." 

BATH-Hot water intermingles with 2,000 years of history in the spa town in Southwest England that received its unique name from its ancient Roman pools. Unlike most sites in Britain that the conquerors created as military garrisons, they utilized the natural springs as a place to rest between subjugating their enemies. Forgotten for centuries, in 1880 locals rediscovered the subterrain spring when extremely hot water leaked into their homes, a fact that put their town on the international map. Reputed to relieve ailments such as palsy and gout, rumor had it that the waters cured Queen Mary, the wife of James II, of her infertility. A less savory aspect were the curses that archaeologists unearthed during the excavation. Scientists discovered 100 of the hexes- inscribed on pewter- that centered on thefts that had occurred while the victims were bathing. One declared: "Docimedis has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and his eyes in the temple." Other ancient artifacts consist of mosaic fragments and a bronze bust of Minerva.

Interestingly, Bath’s UNESCO World Heritage Site refers to the entire city rather than a specific aspect. As testimony to the locale’s beauty and intrigue, the ancient town bears two listings in UNESCO World Heritage Site designations. The first entry, awarded in 1987, stemmed from the site’s Roman antiquities, and eighteenth-century architecture, buildings erected when the elite arrived to seeks cures from the subterrain springs. The second entry, awarded in 2021, arrived when UNESCO deemed Bath as part of The Great Spa Towns of Europe. A visit to Bath allows for a Roman holiday in Britain.

A wrecking-ball to Jane’s soul occurred when her father, the Reverend George Austen, announced his retirement that entailed leaving their Steventon home. Along with his wife and daughters, the family relocated to Bath where they lived for three years with Jane’s brother, John, his wife, and their children. Jane disliked living without “a room of her own” and her years in Bath proved a fallow writing period. For socialization and health reasons, Jane bathed in the public baths and dined at the Grand Pump Restaurant. The eatery, whose décor displays Corinthian columns, massive chandelier, and spa-sourced water, was the gathering place of the town at the apogee of its popularity. In the entrance is an authentic Bath Chair that had once transported visitors to the mineral springs. Jane wrote of the establishment that it was where “every creature in Bath was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours.” On the 200^th anniversary of the literary lioness’s passing, Janeites gathered in Bath where they participated in a promenade through its streets. (In 2014, the festival made the Guiness World Record for “the largest gather of people dressed in Regency costumes.)”

In 1817, while living in Chawton, (her former residence is now her home museum,) Jane took ill, likely from Addison’s Disease or Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Cassandra took her sister to Winchester for medical treatment. An oval plaque hangs in the entrance of 8 College Street where the women stayed for six weeks. With her head in her sibling’s lap, at age forty- one, the author passed away. Jane lay in her coffin in a downstairs room for a week until her internment in nearby Winchester Cathedral. In attendance were her brothers and nephew; Cassandra was not present as the era’s mores did not consider it seemly for women to attend a funeral. Her relatives arranged for her interment in Winchester Cathedral. Initially, her grave was a simple black marble slab in the Cathedral’s north aisle that bore the inscription, “The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections.”. While there was no mention of her literary genius, in 1870 her nephew arranged for wall-mounted brass plaque that stated, “known to many by her writings.” In 1900, then recognized as one of Britain’s greatest writers, a public fund paid for memorial stained-glass window above the plaque.

In a nod to Ms. Austen’s opening sentence in Pride and Prejudice, it is a truth universally acknowledged that vising the UNESCO sites of Lyme Regis and Bath equates to the emotional high of finding one’s Captain Wentworth.