The Black Dog of Lyme Regis

At a farmhouse about a mile from Lyme Regis, a black dog used to take the seat opposite the farmer in the chimney corner every evening, and he let it be. One night, egged on by a neighbour, he chased it upstairs with the poker and struck the ceiling where it vanished, and down fell a box of coins from the reign of Charles I. The dog never came indoors again but was said to haunt the lane to the house, known as Dog Lane, where an inn bore the sign of the Black Dog. A local nurse told the writer she had met it there as late as 1856.