Oh so peaceful

If you’ve forgotten to bring your alarm clock to Star Cottage in Netherbury, there’s no need to worry. If the dawn chorus doesn’t wake you then the church bells will.

Here in the Dorset countryside the peace and quiet is broken only in the most pleasing ways.

One of the nicest sounds you’ll hear is that of the River Brit, the stream that flows past the end of Star Cottage’s garden and on through woodland, alongside fields of sheep and past isolated hamlets and hidden cottages.

To walk along the river is especially charming at dusk, when you’re accompanied by the sounds of the owls and rooks hidden in the dark copses. You can then walk back by moonlight, when there’s just the slightest threat of getting lost. But, aided by your night vision and the moon and stars, you’ll get home okay.

At the end of the walk you may well yearn for a pint, and Star Cottage is convenient for the pub. It adjoins the Star Inn, or rather, the former Star Inn that closed long ago - although the pub’s sign remains, teasingly. You’ll have to make do with a cosy drink in front of the cottage’s wood burner.

The village of Netherbury is close enough to the coast - six miles - to allow you to enjoy the best of both countryside and seaside. Dorset is home to the UNESCO World Heritage listed Jurassic Coast. In just 95 miles of coastline, you can travel through 185 million years of the earth’s history, with Jurassic, as well as Triassic and Cretaceous rocks holding back the waves.

Lyme Regis, right in the middle of Lyme Bay, is a perfect base for exploring the coast, and in particular fossil hunting.

Perhaps the most famous fossil find made in the area was by schoolgirl Mary Anning in the early 19th Century. Aged just 12 she found the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur (a large marine mammal) ever discovered.

The shoreline at Charmouth, two miles east of Lyme Regis, is a great place to look. Walk along the shingle beach in the direction of the Golden Cap, the highest cliff on the South Coast, and you should spot the spiral outline of an ammonite within one of the rocks.

You may think that the sheer number of amateur palaeontologists searching this stretch of shoreline would mean that the best fossils are long gone. Yet each storm brings fresh rock falls, which reveal more specimens.

The area’s reputation as a one of the world’s best fossil locations was further enhanced in the year 2000, when fossil hunter Tony Gill uncovered a 40ft ichthyosaur following a large landslip.

In the unlikely event that you don’t find even the merest fragment of a fossil, there are numerous shops dotted along the coast, including Charmouth Fossils, run by Tony Gill, which sells everything from tiny local ammonites for 25p to Brazilian amethysts priced at more than £1,000.

In Lyme Regis, even the streetlights along the seafront bear the shapes of coiled ammonites. You’ll see these as you walk between the main town and The Cobb, a historic harbour wall perhaps best known as a location in the film The French Lieutenant’s Woman, starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.

The Cobb is also a safe haven for Lyme Regis’s fleet of fishing boats, many of them offering fishing trips. There are some excellent places to eat seafood in town, such as Hix Oyster and Fish House, which has fine views over Lyme Regis and Lyme Bay.

Alternatively you could just buy a tub of cockles, mussels or whelks from a stall as an appetiser, then pick up some fish and chips (try Lyme’s Fish Bar in Coombe Street with its massive portions of chips) to take back to the cottage to enjoy in front of a roaring fire with a bottle of champagne, local ale or cider.

Lyme Regis by day is ideal for a leisurely stroll, its undulating streets home to shops that sell all kinds of goods including teddy bears, art, fudge, second hand clothing and books, and of course fossils.

You can stop to sit outside one of the many cafés, weather permitting, or sup a pint in a warm pub. There are also tearooms serving cream teas.

The town’s other attractions include Dinosaurland, which is a great place to learn about the fossils found in the area. Lyme Regis Museum has displays on local geology and history, as well as the town’s connections with writers such as Jane Austen and John Fowles. At the end of The Cobb is the Marine Aquarium, which displays marine creatures from Lyme Bay, as well as wreckage and fishing artefacts.

There are plenty of other places to explore in west Dorset. East of Lyme Regis is Bridport, a Georgian market town well known for the local produce on sale. It is just inland from West Bay, where golden sandstone cliffs form the backdrop to an equally golden beach.

Heading north or east from Bridport you pick up the Thomas Hardy trail. You can visit Beaminster, another market town, which was known as Emminster in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Dorchester, which Hardy called Casterbridge, features a Roman amphitheatre among its attractions.

Whether it’s warm and sunny, or the rain is near-horizontal, and whether you prefer coast or countryside, this corner of southern England is always at its best.

It is somewhere you’ll want to escape to time and again.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

ACCOMMODATION:
Star Cottage, in Netherbury, is one of 150 self catering cottages available through Dorset Coastal Cottages.
It sleeps three (plus cot), and weekly rental prices for 2009 are between £340 and £670. Three-night short breaks are two thirds of the weekly price.
0800 980 4070, www.dorsetcoastalcottages.com

TOURIST INFORMATION:
Lyme Regis Tourist Information Centre, Church Street, Lyme Regis
01297 442138, www.westdorset.com

Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site website: www.jurassiccoast.com

ATTRACTIONS:
Lyme Regis Marine Aquarium, The Cobb, Lyme Regis www.lymeregismarineaquarium.co.uk

Dinosaurland, Coombe Street, Lyme Regis
01297 443541, www.dinosaurland.co.uk

Lyme Regis Museum, Bridge Street, Lyme Regis
01297 443370, www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk

Charmouth Fossils, Lower Sea Lane, Charmouth
01297 560020, www.charmouthfossils.co.uk

Jurassic Coast fossil walks: www.fossilwalks.com