Marine Parade consists of two ledges, and this is the lower, called the Cart Road. It is level, because beside the sea; the upper level, which we call the Walk, rises and falls somewhat, varying from about half a fathom to a fathom and a half above it.
        In earlier times Lyme was a real port. Goods had to be brought from the harbour to the Cobb Gate, and other goods back to the ships, yet there was no paved Cart Road. Instead, goods were transferred by boat, when the tide was high. When it was low, horse-drawn carts went along the beach. The horses were so accustomed to their work that they could be left driverless to pull the carts to and fro by themselves; and when the tide came in they knew that work was over, and started home for their stables.
        Also along the beach went strings of horses loaded with panniers called “dorsers” to contain the catch from the fishing boats. Only one driver was needed, riding the leading horse.
        The beach in front of the Marine Parade is called the Town Beach. Till recently it was a fairly natural mixture: a slope of white shingle, leveling into sand and seaweedy rock below. The shingly upper beach lay lower than now, so that there was more of a drop to it from the Cart Road. Storm waves were able to crash against the wall, and they scooped and piled the shingle, threw handfuls of it up onto the Cart Road, even onto the Walk above. The present high beach of shingle was created in 2006.
        As the tide lowers, waves begin to break some distance out, half way along the beach front. They are beginning to feel the presence of the group of rocks called Lucy's Ledge. Lower water, and this seaweedy island appears; lower still, and it is quite an archipelago, and becomes wetly joined to the land.
        The teenagers stretching measuring tapes down to the edge of the shingle and making notes on clipboards have come on an afternoon's project from a school in Gillingham to study the erosion of the beach.
        High summer reigns: it is Lifeboat Week in July or Carnival Week in August, so there are more people on the beach than ever. There is a tug-of-war along the edge of the water, and a sandcastle competition over on the sandbar nearer to the harbour.
        The Cart Road is quite narrow, but vehicles are parked along it, some legally and some not, and pedestrians are as thick as on the Walk above and the beach below, so if you're driving you have to creep carefully, hoping not to fall off the edge or meet a car coming back. Half way along, opposite Lucy's Ledge, is a slightly wider “turning space,” where a railing protects you, maybe, from backing into the sea as you turn. There's no other way to get out (if you're in a car, that is): the fragment of the Cart Road ahead doesn't lead very far.
        And the ramp on the right has a padlocked bar at the top, because it's just for access to the upper Walk and the Bay Hotel. On foot or bike, of course, you can get past.