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| Skirts of the Moor |
Glorious and sensationally beautiful though Exmoor National Park undoubtedly is, the Park itself does not contain all the delights of the Exmoor area. Far from it, in fact. There are treasures to be sought out and stumbled
upon all through the wide sweep of country that surrounds the moor for many miles.
Hill ranges that lie separate from Exmoor
itself include the Brendons and the
Quantocks to the east of the National Park. The
thickly wooded Brendons rise south of Minehead, a
tumbled country where long ridge roads fly the
length of the uplands with great views east to the
Quantocks, north towards the coast and the Bristol
Channel beyond and west to where the Brendons
blend seamlessly into Exmoor proper. The
Quantocks, by contrast, stand apart, a rolling uplift
of brown and purple shoulders of moorland. Here
you’ll find the lovely small village of Nether
Stowey, where poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge came
to live in 1797 in a house in Lime Street – his great
poetical friends, brother and sister William and
Dorothy Wordsworth, settled at Alfoxden House in
nearby Holford.
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Five Hidden Delights
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St Mary’s Church at Molland, between Dulverton and
North Molton, is a beautiful medieval building with
arches askew, a moorland church with box pews, grand
pulpit and panelling unchanged from the 18th-century.
Peaceful and charming – an absolute gem. |
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1 in 4 is a steep slope; that was the gradient of the West
Somerset Mineral Railway’s Comberow Incline, near
Roadwater on the eastern fringe of Exmoor, down which
trucks full of iron ore from the Brendon Hill mines were
lowered on their journey to the port of Watchet. The old
mineral railway closed in 1910, but the grassy ascent
may soon be open to walkers with plenty of puff –
Exmoor National Park has acquired both the incline and
its ruined but spectacular winding house.
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Washford railway station, on the A390 between Watchet
and Minehead, is the headquarters of the Somerset &
Dorset Railway Trust. Here you can admire gleaming
steam locomotives, enjoy the S&DRT’s fine museum,
and chat to people who are restoring these splendid
and beautiful machines. |
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If you get a kick out of fly-fishing for rainbow trout,
you’ll love Wistlandpound Reservoir sunk among its trees
a few miles north of Bratton Fleming. If your wish is sea
angling, then there are many opportunities along the
coast, along with organised boat trips from the local harbours. |
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Fancy the idea of cruising the Somerset coastline in a
wooden sailing boat, helping to steer and set the sails?
Make your dreams come true with a trip on Josefine
(www.sailjosefine.co.uk), a gaff-rigged ketch built in
Denmark in the 1930s, now based in the characterful
old port of Watchet. |
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Famous names, extraordinary talents – but for the
most part the story of these Exmoor fringes has
tended to be that of the everyday life of a large
scatter of comfortable, self-contained little villages
and market towns. Three very enjoyable towns are
Wiveliscombe, cradled at the feet of the Brendons;
Bampton on the River Batherm, a place where every shop and street seems smothered in flowers;
and South Molton with its thriving Pannier Market,
Quince’s honey farm, and delicious smells issuing
from Melchior’s chocolate factory. Add such
‘heavenly twins’ as East and West Anstey just
south of the central moor, and East and West
Quantoxhead, at the seaward end of the
Quantocks, coupled with the many and varied
pubs all around the outskirts of the moor - and
satisfaction is guaranteed!
The eastern edge of the National Park meets the
Bristol Channel at Minehead, but the coast of the
region runs east for another thirty miles, past the
popular holiday bay at Blue Anchor and the ancient
little port of Watchet, now with a new marina, the
moody shore at East Quantoxhead, Kilve with its
fossil-rich cliffs and the lonely hulk of Hinkley Point
power station, all the way to the flat and muddy
bird watcher’s paradise of Stert Point on Bridgwater
Bay. By contrast, the coast beyond the western
boundary of the Park at Combe Martin is all
dramatic, rocky cliffs and coves as it runs west
past Ilfracombe’s fine beaches. |
