LymeLiving - OCTOBER 2026 - Edition_compressed (1) - Flipbook - Page 45
45
LymeLiving - The Lyme Regis Town Council Magazine
DID YOU
KNOW?
The stretch of Coombe Street between the
Ship Inn and Gosling Bridge was once known
as Horse Street, named after the packhorses
that travelled through Lyme Regis carrying
goods between the coast and inland Dorset.
Gosling Bridge was once a gateway to Lyme.
Long before today’s roads, travellers crossed
Gosling Bridge to enter the town.
The original building on the site survived
Lyme Regis’ devastating Great Fire of 1803,
which destroyed many properties elsewhere
in the town.
Dr Wyatt Wingrave, the first curator of Lyme
Regis Museum, recorded
that
the building
had in 1906
Guests
arriving
at the hotel
been used as a town hall during the 17th
century, although never conclusively proven.
The building you see today is largely a postwar reconstruction by local builder Cecil
Quick, but the history of the site beneath it
could stretch all the way back to Elizabethan
times.
20-21 Coombe Street, today
The building was demolished after the second world war
Coombe Street, today
Harris, Quick & Co, Coombe Street, c1958
