Lyme Regis West Ham, Everton and England striker) was made club patron. In birth order: Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in West Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Styled "The Pearl of Dorset", it lies at Lyme Bay on the English Channel coast at the Dorset–Devon border. It is noted for fossils found in cliffs and beaches on the Heritage Coast or Jurassic Coast – a World Heritage Site. The harbour wall known as "The Cobb" appears in Jane Austen's novel "Persuasion", in the John Fowles novel "The French Lieutenant's Woman", and in the 1981 film of
History of Dorset Dorset for 200 years after the withdrawal of the Roman legions. The inhospitable coastline prevented an invasion from the sea. When the Roman road across Cranborne Chase was rebuilt in the 6th century the Saxons advanced into Dorset. The Romano-British retreated, constructing another defence, Combs Ditch, which also fell within a century. It is thought that the Saxons captured east Dorset in the mid-7th century and west Dorset shortly afterwards, but the details are not known. Dorset was initially part of Saxon Wessex, with the first record of Dorset being in 841. Coenred, the sub-king of Dorset at the end