Some events as reported in 1857 are still very familiar today.

They may have been written 166 years ago but some of the news items relating to Lyme Regis extracted here from the Pulmans Weekly News of 1857 could have been written about events today: examples include the results of the summer Horticultural show and reports on the Annual Regatta and the boats wrecked in the harbour by an October gale. Other items are more of their time - for example, a house-to-house collection in aid of the "suffering English" only 5 months after the beginning of the Indian Mutiny, which shows the news spread at a surprising rate; and some are just bizarre, such as the report of a trout being caught in "the little stream opposite Mill Green. There were 5 mice in its stomach".