Lyme Regis was home to fossil hunter Mary Anning, and on my visit last weekend I spotted a copy of her fragile Commonplace Book in the local museum. Lyme Regis Museum is built by the sea on the site of where Mary lived with her family in poverty in the early nineteenth century. Her book includes this page about astronomy.
Mary also made copies of published poems and thoughts about love and loneliness, an insight into the mind of this extraordinary woman who, driven by curiosity about the world, made ground-breaking paleontological discoveries. I’ve included a homage to the young Mary in The Hand Book of hopes and dreams, to be published by Design For Today in November this year. My photograph is an early morning view from Lyme Regis taken from near the cliffs Mary loved to explore, with a view of Golden Cap in the distance.
