The Lyme Regis Museum: History of Science and Early Naturalist Mary Anning

A brief history of Lyme Regis Museum

The museum building in Cockhmoile Square has an interesting history. It is located on the site of the famous fossilist Mary Anning’s house, the house from which she moved in 1826. Indeed Mary Anning’s first shop was also on the site.

The designer of the museum building. George Vialls. 1842 to 1912
George Vialls, a nationally recognised architect, left many examples of his neo-renaissance style in Lyme Regis. These include the Guildhall, a redesigning of Poulett House now the Alexandra Hotel and the creation of a chapel there. He fulfilled Reverend Peek’s vision in his design of a school for the sons of clergy and Coram Tower for the school staff.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Vialls’ final Lyme Regis project was a design of what was initially called the Philpot Museum and Picture Gallery, commissioned by Thomas Philpot. Elizabeth Philpot 1780 to 1857 and her two sisters lived in Lyme and were fossil collectors and important supporters of Mary Anning. Thomas Philpot, Elizabeth’s great nephew, had financed several civic improvements in Lyme. Philpot had acquired the building adjoining the west end of the Guildhall in Cockmoile Square some time earlier. Mary Anning’s birthplace was in very poor condition and so was demolished. Philpot intended the building of the museum to complete a miniature civic centre also consisting of the Guildhall and Drill Hall. The Borough Council commissioned Vialls to design the recreated Guildhall, which was built in 1887 to 1888.

The design of the interior of Lyme Regis Museum.

The ambitious concept of the North European Renaissance design for the museum was grand for a small town. The Philpot Museum design is like a miniature big city museum, with echoes of other Lyme buildings influenced by Vialls. There are stylistic links with The Gables, the Head Teacher’s house in Church Street, the Drill Hall, now the Marine Theatre, with its cottage entrance on Church Street, and some of the Guildhall windows. The original open market arcade in the museum’s east wing and the turrets are echoed in the Guildhall and formerly the Drill Hall.

The museum interior is mainly Flemish Gothic with Art Nouveau details. It has a grand staircase in an internal atrium rising three floors; and fine doorways to the galleries, the names of each carved on the stone lintels over the doorways.

Although the museum architecture can still be appreciated, decay from its exposed location by the sea and poor maintenance mar its original splendour. Erosion of the stone window mullions, patching of string courses with mortar and the loss of the decoration at the base of the first floor turret somewhat tarnishes the decoration. The poor condition of the first floor of the exposed and dilapidated east wing above the market arcade led to its demolition with a utilitarian replacement completed in 1969. In 2017, the museum was extended on the seaward side to designs by Architecton.

Exhibitions of Lyme artefacts occurred before the Philpot Museum was in use. In 1788, a private collection of fossils was displayed in Charmouth. In 1817, the Lyme, access could be gained to private collections of fossils, including those of the Philpot sisters, who befriended Mary Anning. Mary Anning displayed her fossils in her mother’s Molly Anning’s shop, set up in 1811. Successive dealers and collectors, such as the Dollins and the Moores, also ran fossil shops commercially. Exhibitions for educational use only arrived with the museum displays.
Mary Anning - The Woman Who Found Fossilized Dinosaurs
Mary Anning: Why the Fossil Lady was an Amazing Fossil Hunter
Mary Anning, a Legendary Fossil Hunter -
The Museum of Mary Anning
Mary Anning: A Brief Biography
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