BRIDPORT AND LYME REGIS MEETING. Ixvii. 



Of the original books one (which, lost for a time, was found and 

 restored to the church by Dr. Waring) remains. It is a copy of 

 "Erasmus' Paraphrase of the Four Gospels and Acts of the 

 Apostles." It is a black letter folio volume in fairly good 

 order ; the title page is wanting, but in the body of the volume 

 there is written "For Lyme, the isth day of January, 1599, 

 Edmund Wright." " This book partaineth to the Parish of 

 Lyme Regis." 



Leaving the church the party were led by the Vicar to the 

 edge of the cliff at the back of the churchyard, where the alarm- 

 ing encroachment of the sea is so vividly illustrated. How to 

 preserve their hallowed burial ground from further spoliation by 

 the ravenous sea is one of the problems that tax the anxious 

 minds of the Vicar and his church officers. There used, Mr. 

 Jacob assured the party, as they looked down upon the huge 

 breakers, to be two fields intervening between the churchyard 

 and the sea ; but they had both disappeared, and a large portion 

 of the burial ground had been eaten away. The process was 

 still going on. Two Frenchmen who were drowned, and their 

 bodies washed up on the shore, were buried in the churchyard. 

 But last winter they returned to the deep ! 



On leaving the church, Mr. J. S. Turner, the editor of the 

 local newspaper and a recognised authority on the history and 

 antiquities of the neighbourhood, became the leader of the 

 party. Mr. Turner had already given the Hon. Secretary much 

 kind assistance in arranging the programme and engaging 

 vehicles. Taking them to Gun Cliff Fort, where four guns used 

 to be mounted, he showed where the old harbour was, in 

 addition to the anchorage within the lines of the Cobb. Three 

 other forts figured in the siege of the town by the Royalists 

 during the Civil War Gaitch's Fort, which disappeared into the 

 sea, Bell Cliff Fort, near the Hotel Alexandra, and the Western 

 Fort, which the Parliamentary garrison were not able to hold, 

 and from which the besiegers poured a destructive fire on the 

 shipping. Mr. Turner pointed out the spot on the western 

 beach where the Duke of Monmouth landed, for the Duke did 



