Although built in the early eighteenth century, Chewton Glen wrote itself into the history books during the 1840s when Captain Frederick Marryat came to stay here. George Marryat had bought Chewton in 1837 and the house was a good place for his brother Frederick to work on his novel The Children of the New Forest, which was published in 1847. Today visitors can arrive at Chewton Glen through that very same forest.
With its bay windows and turrets the Connaught Hotel was clearly built as a family home in the 1850s. As such it was part of the rapid development of Bournemouth that followed its inclusion in a book The Spas of England, by the physician Augustus Granville. Granville's book (1841) drew visitors who hitherto had preferred Weymouth and Brighton.
The “Alex”, as it is known locally, overlooks Cobb Harbour in Lyme Regis, the setting for John Fowles' novel – and the Meryl Streep film of – The French Lieutenant's Woman. The original building was constructed in 1735 as a home for the Dowager Countess Poulett and was later the residence of the Duc du Stacpoole before becoming a hotel in 1901 with the addition of a Victorian bay window over its neo-classic portico.
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