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
Dorset United Kingdom. However, Dorset maintains higher summer temperatures than Devon and Cornwall, with average highs of . Excluding hills such as the Dorset Downs, the average annual temperature of the county is . The south coast counties of Dorset, Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent enjoy more sunshine than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, receiving 1,541–1,885 hours a year. Average annual rainfall varies across the county—southern and eastern coastal areas receive per year; the Dorset Downs receive between per year; less than Devon and Cornwall to the west but more than counties to the east. The 2011 Census