Charmouth

CHARMOUTH is a pleasant watering place on the shore of the English channel, a village and parish, 2 miles east from Lyme Regis, 6 west from Bridport and 5½ miles south-east from Axminster station on the South Western railway, and 146 from London, in the Western division of the county, Whitchurch hundred, Bridport petty sessional division and union, Axminster county court district, rural deanery of Bridport Lyme portion, archdeaconry of Dorset and diocese of Salisbury; it is situated on the high road between Dorchester and Exeter, and takes its name from the river Char, a small stream which flows through the valley near which it is built: it is a place of great antiquity, being on a branch of the trackway called Ikeneld Street, which left Morcombelake and passed through Charmouth and Lyme Regis, over the hills to Colyford, Sidbury, Woodbury Castle and Exeter. During the time the Romans occupied Dorsetshire it was one of their stations and called Carca Arixa; in 833 great battles were fought between King Egbert's army and the Danes, who landed from thirty-five ships and made great slaughter: it is much frequented by visitors from its peculiar advantages, the mildness of the climate and the purity of the sea water.