AN HISTORIC maritime villa in Lyme Regis is celebrating its re-opening with two open days.
Belmont, an 18th century villa, will open to the public for the first time since completion with two special open days on Saturday and Sunday September 26 and 27 from 10am to 4pm.
The Grade II listed villa once belonged to the remarkable businesswoman Mrs Eleanor Coade who devised a formula to mass produce architectural embellishments.
More recently Belmont, in Cobb Road, was home to world-famous author, John Fowles, author of The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman.
The Landmark Trust has restored Belmont to its appearance in Mrs Coade’s day and will rent the villa, which sleeps eight, out to holidaymakers.
Visitors will be able to sit – and indeed write – in John Fowles’s former writing room with its wide views of sea and sky.
In the garden there is a Victorian observatory tower, with hatch and revolving roof.
Most of the long garden is left wild and it tumbles down to the esplanade, with a pebble beach and the Cobb beyond.
For more information call 01628 825925.
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