THE coastline between Burton Bradstock and Lyme Regis is one of rugged cliffs, huge beaches, dramatic landslides, fossils galore, sleepy villages and quirky towns.
It is also the oldest part of Dorset's Jurassic Coast, England's first natural World Heritage Site, with rocks dating from 200 million years ago.
The National Trust owns much of the coastal land and the clifftop South West Coast Path offers some excellent walks.
The busy harbour village of West Bay (once known as Bridport Harbour) is dominated by the giant East Cliff.
It was an important port in Roman times and as well as being a smallish working port today, it is also a place for holidays, with characteristic kiosks, pubs, restaurants and attractions.
A remodelled harbour entrance has helped prevent disastrous flooding. Up the River Brit is Bridport, a place for 900 years associated with the rope-making industry, although also renowned as a brewing and market town.
READ MORE: 'Village was 'decimated by pirates'
A little to the west is Seatown, a village steeped in the history of smuggling, while nearby Chideock was mentioned in the Domesday Book, had a castle demolished in the Civil War and is now completely an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The headland Golden Cap, near Seatown, is the highest cliff on the south coast of England at 191 metres. Its name comes from the bare stretches of yellow earth (or weathered Upper Greensand), although most of this is now covered in vegetation.
Charmouth is at the heart of the Jurassic Coast, being the best and safest place to find fossils, due to coastal erosion and landslips. The Heritage Coast Centre next to the beach is a good place to start.
Lyme Regis is a fascinating and quirky seaside town, hemmed in by hills, and with a narrow tangle of streets tumbling down to the harbour.
A multi-million-pound sea defence and land stabilisation scheme in 2006 led to a brand new beach - with 71,000 tonnes of sand being imported from France and 41,000 tonnes of shingle from the Isle of Wight.
The 13th century seawall, known as the Cobb, was made famous by Meryl Streep as she walked along it is rough weather in the 1981 film The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Pioneer geologist Mary Anning, dubbed the 'princess of palaeontology', whose fossil collecting led to the discovery of several new species of long-extinct creatures was born in 1799 on the spot where Lyme's Regis's Philpot Museum now stands.
READ MORE: 'Dorset walk taking in grand home and castle'
Charles II's illegitimate son, the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth sailed from Holland to Lyme on June 11, 1685 and declared himself king in place of James II at the site of the pilot Boat Inn. The subsequent rebellion was snuffed out and 12 Lyme men were hanged on the beach in the aftermath.
Lyme Regis's literary connections include Jane Austen staying in the town in 1804 and basing part of her novel Persuasion in the Lyme. John Fowles, author of the French Lieutenant's Woman, lived in Lyme until his death in 200X and was town museum curator for a decade.
The short-lived BBC TV drama series Harbour Lights, starring Nick Berry was filmed in West Bay, which was renamed Bridehaven.
TV foodie Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall shot many outside broadcast elements of his River Cottage series in West Bay and Bridport.
READ MORE: 'The magnificent beach with treacherous waters'
The area around Charmouth is fantastic for fossiling, although particularly prone to landslides. Black Ven, to the west of the village, has suffered most. Europe's largest coastal mudflow happened there in the winter of 1958/9, leaving countless fossils exposed, and many more landslips have followed.
The hottest chilli in the world was grown by Michael and Joy Michaud at their West Bexington market garden.
The Dorset Naga's scorching heat of around a million Scoville Heat Units was double the previous best. Anyone eating a whole one would require hospital treatment.
The Moores Family has been baking biscuits in Dorset since before 1860.
The bakery in Morcombelake, near Charmouth, was established in 1880 and now the fifth generation continues to make more than 10 varieties of traditional biscuits including the famous Dorset Knob.
The bakery is now sited just a few miles down at a new home in Bridport.
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