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At Lyme Bay Holidays, we’re proud to be from Dorset. It’s our home and where we’re delighted to welcome tens of thousands of people every single year for amazing, unforgettable cottage holidays.

It’s that passion for our local area which gets us up in the morning and why so many people love the service we give.

Over the years, we’ve dispensed countless little bits of local wisdom and wit, but there’s plenty yet to tell. It’s for that reason that we’ve decided to draw up this; a list of ten things that you probably don’t know about Dorset. Let’s go!

Dorset’s Jurassic Coast was the first natural site in the UK to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, indicating an area of extreme historical interest thanks to the spectacular array of prehistoric fossils still found today.

 

  • Poole Harbour is pretty huge, but how big is it? Well, behind Sydney, it’s the largest natural harbour in the world and was formed during the ice age when a valley was filled by a rising sea.

 

  • Many of Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ books are said to be set around the Isle of Purbeck and Poole Harbour. Blyton spent many years enjoying Purbeck Golf Club, which she bought for £1 and used to holiday at.

 

  • Dorset has given birth to countless legendary British figures, including Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Beatrix Potter, Mary Anning, Enid Blyton, William Barnes, Sir Walter Raleigh and more! Perhaps it’s something in the water?

 

  • Dorset is home to the oldest post box in England! It’s in Bishops Caundle and dates from 1853. Why not swing down and send off a postcard?

 

  • The original Celtic name for Dorset was ‘Dorseteschire’, which means “the place of fisticuffs”! Clearly, once upon a time, you were likely to get into a scrap in dear, beautiful Dorset. That’s not quite the case these days, of course.

 

  • Like your food hot? The Dorset Naga chili is said to be the hottest in the world, with an average score of 923,000 Scoville Heat Units. For comparison, your common Jalapeno chili tops out at just 8,000 Scoville’s. Given that gloves have to be worn in the handling of it, we can’t advise that you dig in.

 

  • The tongue twister “She sells sea shells by the sea shore” was inspired by a Dorset woman who opened Britain’s first fossil shop in 1826, selling the fossils her and her family found on the beach in Lyme Regis.

 

  • Anyone for a game of Trivial Pursuit? The original questions were largely researched in Weymouth library.

 

  • Dorset is one of only five English counties without a motorway running through it. It’s just another reason why life here is as quiet and idyllic as it is.

 

There you have it… Hopefully that has inspired you to book into one of our Dorset Coast holiday cottages and find out more about the above.