Ten Mile Walk from Hawkcombe Head to the Ship Inn, Porlock Weir, via Porlock Marsh

This walk has a little of everything – bracken and heather moorland, a beautiful wooded river valley, a salt marsh, and finally a climb from sea level to fourteen hundred feet in fewer than three miles. The going to begin with, however, couldn’t have been easier as the narrow path from Hawkcombe Head, marked by the remains of a broken signpost, dives off between the heather and bracken.
Soon the coast and the sea appear, framed by the edges of the combe, and the path climbs down into ancient oak woodland.

It follows the river, and so there is no chance of missing your way. Even after the recent heavy rain, the fords were easy to cross and, where there was deeper water, we found handy footbridges.

The woods are a haunt of the wild pony herds, especially lower down the valley where there are riverside pastures. The path eventually comes out of the woods and into a lane bordered by pleasant cottages. If one called “The Peep-Out” is a typical Exmoor hideaway, with the river opposite the house falling over a succession of steep steps, another further on is not. Indeed, anyone who has been frustrated by the notorious rigour of the Exmoor National Park planning office may take comfort from this particular edifice. The setting is magical with the river flowing through the garden. The pedigree of the house, however, complete with a black and white mosaic approach, is by Walt Disney out of Ludwig of Bavaria. Ambitious Exmoor property developers will take comfort from its singular architecture.

Further on the charm of Hawkcombe becomes more conventional as the lane follows the river. The climate here seems positively tropical compared with the head of the valley. Flowers are everywhere, and in one cottage garden a waterfall cascaded between luxuriant hydrangeas.

Hawkcombe seamlessly becomes Porlock, and soon the lane tips you out into the Porlock tourists know so well with its winding high street and lethal traffic. We crossed the road and, turning right, soon came to the entry into Sparkhayes Lane which takes you away from the village and out towards the sea.

When we reached the foreshore, we turned left on to the coastal path which took us across Porlock Marsh towards Porlock Weir. On our right loomed the mass of Bossington Hill. In 1942 a Liberator bomber, hopelessly lost in dreadful flying conditions after a U-boat patrol in the Bay of Biscay, clipped the edge of the hill and crashed into the marsh. Only one member of the crew survived. You will find their memorial at the side of the path.

The grassy path also takes you past the remnants of a submarine forest. The shingle bank is deteriorating in places, and a decision has been taken to allow the sea to go where it wilt for the time being. Eventually the path disappears, and the going for the last few hundred yards is over the shingle before some steps take you onto the road just outside Porlock Weir.

Porlock Weir, even on a greyish day, is a nice spot with its backdrop of wooded hills and its tiny harbour. If you cross the lock gates, you come to a rank of thatched cottages called Gibraltar perched on top of the shingle. It must be some experience to sit there by your fireside in a winter storm, listening to the sea crashing on the shore within yards of your home. The “Anchor Hotel” closed in a hurry – the ghostly dining room tables are still covered by their table cloths – but the Ship Inn next door is very much in business. The bar is a long, narrow room with low black beams, although there are a considerable number of tables outside facing the water where most punters choose to sit. There were four cask ales available, together with the usual industrial concoctions and a remarkable series of taps which distributed draught wine by grape variety; cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay-semillon, and so forth. Living as we do in a complete backwater, this was a magical emanation of vinous progress. What next? Taps, perhaps, which spurted particular vineyards, Chateaux Petrus or Lafitte, perhaps?

Sadly, I didn’t see them in use, and we chose to drink Cotleigh Harrier. Typically, when we are all ready to taste a brew new to us, the barrel gave out as our pints were being poured. We switched to Otter, which is a strongish bitter with good, typical colour. It also came in the brewery’s charming glasses with its standing otter on the side. Meanwhile the lady behind the bar was pumping bravely at the new barrel of Harrier and so, just as we drained the Otter, we were able to move on to our original choice. Harrier is a modern version of the “boy’s bitter” I used to drink as a youth. You would have drowned in it before you were incapable. Even so Harrier is an excellent beer to choose at lunchtime. Despite its low alcohol strength of 3.5% and its lemony colour, it bursts with flavour. The brewery claims that it appeals to the “more modern, health-conscious, drinker.” Well, that recommendation should kill it dead if nothing else does but, despite that ghastly bit of copy-writing, we liked the beer.
The Ship serves plenty of grub at reasonable prices. The menu comes on one of those ugly laminated cards, but I don’t expect that it’s felt necessary to change it too often. The Ship knows what the tourist trade likes and gives it to them. That marker of pub grub prices, the baguette, comes in at around a fiver, and there is a wide selection of popular fillings. You can have them all in sandwiches if you prefer, something of a rarity in some pubs these days, and welcome to those who find eating a baguette as tiring as a visit to a dental hygienist. We also approved of the pub’s offer of all its main courses in small and large portions, suitably priced; something others would do well to imitate.
We eventually accepted the inevitable and set off to climb to Pitcombe Head. We walked up past the Porlock posh noshery, “Andrews On The Weir”, (lunch a reasonable £10 for two courses,) and turned right towards Worthy tollhouse. After only a short way a narrow path started upwards to our left, and we began to climb. It’s a steep haul, and I soon found myself thinking of President Sarkozy of France, a mere sprog compared with a bus card holder like myself, collapsing while jogging a few days previously. I consoled myself by remembering that I wasn’t married to Carla Bruni, either, and eventually the track became wider and the gradient more tolerable as we approached the toll road above Yearnor Mill.
After a few yards on the road, we turned up the no-through road towards Pitt Farm, where a team of builders was refurbishing the old house and buildings. Behind the farm we turned left, and then we followed a broad track up through forestry until we reached the main Porlock-Lynmouth road opposite the old AA box.

It stands redundant, a reminder of a more gracious period of motoring when AA men rode to the rescue on motor cycles with sidecars, dressed in khaki uniforms like despatch riders of the Great War, deferentially saluting drivers like my father who sported the chrome and yellow AA badge on the radiator grille of their Morris Minor shooting brakes. We crossed the road and passed a lovely mare and her foal as we walked from Pitcombe Head along the bridleway back to our truck.

Ten Mile Walk From Dunkery Gate via Dunkery Beacon to the Rest & Be Thankful, Wheddon Cross

This is a walk which punches well above its weight. We had to measure it twice to convince ourselves that it wasn’t much further than the map tried to persuade us. The only answer to the conundrum must be that the various steep ascents and descents involved slow one’s normal rate of progress. There was no problem in parking at Dunkery Gate, even though this was a fine Saturday morning in late July. Anecdotal experience has convinced me for many years that leisure experts consistently overestimate the enthusiasm of the British public for hiking over the moors. What the BP wants are views accessible by road and toilet blocks.

The broad path to Dunkery Beacon starts just above the Gate, and in no time at all you are on the summit. Anyone who does an Exmoor pub quiz needs to know that this is the highest point on Exmoor, indeed the highest point in Somerset, at 1703 feet high.

The views can vary between the magnificent and the impenetrable. On this morning the air was not as clear as it can be, but the compensation was some marvellous cloud scapes above the Bristol Channel looking towards the Welsh coast.

We turned down the well-worn path which carries most of the human traffic between the road and the Beacon, passing the popular car parks and heading downwards towards Wootton Courtenay. This is a steepish track, with clusters of the loose, rough stone typical of the Dunkery area. Still, it’s easier going down than up as hard experience has taught us. See our walk to Wootton Courtenay and Timberscombe. There were good views over the sea, and ponies too, as we headed downwards with the oddly roofed tower of Wootton Courtenay church in the distance.

Just before the track descends into woodland at Brockwell, another path forks away to the right, back uphill through the bracken. It is signposted as “Mick’s Path” and to “Span Gate”. This we followed upwards until we turned downwards into Hanny Combe, crossing a stream, with the woodland of Elsworthy Allotment to our left. It’s important next to stick to the ascending moorland path, following signs to “Span Gate”. As we made our way between the bracken, there was a sudden rustle to our left as a hind jumped up and plunged downwards towards the cover of Spangate Grove.

We eventually climbed to what was clearly Spangate, with a four-way signpost, one of whose arms pointed to Wheddon Cross in rather cavalier fashion through an impenetrable clump of bulrushes. We skirted this to the left and followed the edge of the moor until we reached an inviting gate, with thick wedges of woodland below away to the south which appeared to block the way to Wheddon Cross. The partnership then had a brisk exchange of cartographical theories, but we finally kept to the side of the moor and were rewarded with another gate, duly signed to Wheddon Cross. The signpost is easy to miss as it is stuck up on top of a high bank to your left for some reason.

The path takes you into woodland just at the point where the track from the first, contentious, gate joins you from the left! This is rated as a bridleway, but it would be some horse which willingly negotiated the steep and narrow defile which leads you down to the River Avill. The path then follows the river until you start climbing again, and then cross a narrow lane into Little Quarme Wood. This is a steep haul until you reach the asphalt drive of the Raleigh Hotel, at the gates of which a path to your right takes you round the back of Wheddon Cross cattle market and on to the main road from Exford. From there it’s just a short walk into the settlement itself.

Wheddon Cross couldn’t help but be an important Exmoor centre with the two main moorland roads meeting here. There is a garage and shop, guest houses, the market, and, of course, a substantial hostelry, “The Rest & Be Thankful”. The present owners have spent a tidy sum on it, and it now looks very smart, and is as much a hotel as just a pub. The bar area is long and narrowish. One end was laid up for lunches, and the far end is a “public” with pool table, flashing fruit machines, and jukebox. Geographically and culturally in the middle, there were a couple of low, leather sofas where we established ourselves. There were three cask ales on offer, and we chose Sharp’s “Doom Bar”. The lady behind the bar was having trouble with the pump, which she was pulling with all the desperation of a sailor on a sinking ship. The condition of the pint, however, looked excellent, but I found the flavour on the flabby side. My wife enjoyed hers, and had seconds, but I switched to the ever-reliable Exmoor Ale. The hotel end of the bar was busy with lunches, and the menu looked good value. An 8oz rump steak with all the trimmings was just short of £10, and cod and chips was landed at £6.75. Baguettes were £5.75. It was just what you would expect in an Exmoor pub firmly placed athwart the tourist track.
We walked across the playing field which, like the village hall, is very much on the grand side, considering the size of the village. The public conveniences are decorated with some remarkable murals, as if some rural Banksy, working in mosaic, had passed this way.

The path to Luckwell Bridge is easily found behind them. It’s a pleasant enough walk, and you come into the tiny hamlet near to its eponymous bridge. Luckwell Bridge is one of those places which obviously has seen busier times. We passed “The Old Chapel”, “The Old Shop”, “The Old Inn”, and “The Old Forge”. We crossed the main Exford-Wheddon Cross road, and took the steep track known as “Long Lane”, a wet and dank tunnel which improves as you climb towards Dunkery Gate. If we did this walk again, we would probably seek to find some way of returning via Blagdon and Mansley woods.

As we reached the road just below the Gate, we felt the first inevitable spots of rain. In the twenty five days of July to date, there had been just two dry days on the Moor.

Nine Mile Walk from Kennisham Hill to Croydon Hill and the Royal Oak at Luxborough

We shouldn’t have bothered. The forecast was dire but, after a fortnight or more of the weather euphemistically known as “changeable”, we were willing to chance that the rain might hold off for an extra hour or two. We parked at the picnic site on the eastern end of Kennisham Hill and set off, like the Start-Rite kids on their golden pathway, along a broad straight track between conifer plantations towards the wireless station at the far end of the wood.
All walking addicts should be aware that the way on a map often looks very different on the ground. Forestry can be very misleading with its seductively straight and even tracks and, when we reached the edge of the trees, we turned right and headed cheerfully downhill. The further we walked, the more our unease grew as we seemed to be swinging away from our true bearing and, eventually, we took the unwelcome but inevitable step of turning round and climbing back to where we had made our turn. What mugs we were. The map showed clearly that the path was beyond the boundary of the trees and, if we had walked but a few more steps, we would have seen the signpost neatly obscured by a thicket of bracken.
We passed through a gate out of the plantation, and turned right downhill to walk through grass meadows still soaked by previous rains. The flies had been persistent but tolerable in the forestry, but now they buzzed around our heads in thick clouds worthy of the Australian outback.
There is probably a moralistic ratio in walking, in that the more appealing a track appears, the more likely it is to be in the wrong direction. When we reached a point where a signpost pointed cheerily to the right for Luxborough, it was quite obvious that our way to Churchtown, unsigned, was through a dense patch of nettles into a gloomy tunnel of beech. It was one of those ways which vary between loose rubble and slick stone, and we slid and crunched our way downwards until we plunged into the open again with the hamlet and the church below us.

The correct path eventually eluded us for some reason, but there was no problem in getting out of the fields above Westcott Farm, and crossing the ford to reach the lane. Here, however, was another of those crises of uncertainty which walkers habitually are obliged to weather. On the map the bridle path to Croydon Hill shot straight across the lane. The signpost, however, pointed equivocally towards an inpenetrable steep bank and hedge. If the map was correct, the way led through the firmly gated garden of a neat cottage. There was not a single reassuring blue blob of paint to be seen. Nothing could have looked less like a public bridleway. The rain began to spot down, and disaster threatened. Fortunately a lady issued out of the cottage at this very moment. Yes, there was a bridle path. Yes, we were welcome to go through the gates and make our way up across the neatly mown grass. No, very few horses ever came that way, but some walkers. At the top of her domain there was even a little bench for their use.
Then we found ourselves suddenly back in forestry. We took the track which promised to lead to Dunster and walked uphill between tedious squares of Christmas trees. The rain now became more insistent, and by the time we had reached the top of the hill, it was a steady downpour. The plan was to walk round the open circle of Withycombe Common but, not only were we greeted by the full force of the rain as we emerged from the trees, we were mugged by great clouds of flies.
We cut our losses and fled downhill towards Luxborough and the comforts of the Royal Oak. By the time we neared the edge of the dripping trees with their scanty protection, the rain was streaming down. We stood in the lane, hopping from one surviving dry patch to another, there to cower beneath the densest available foliage until almost run down by the postman. When the deluge eased somewhat, we made a final push towards the pub past the painted stone cottages of this charming village.
If you are a walker, a pub is often approached with some sense of trepidation. Has it closed down? Is it open? Will you be greeted with signs demanding that you remove at least your boots, if not more intimate bits of your attire. My face must have conveyed all these reservations as I pushed open the old wooden door. From behind the bar, bang opposite the entrance, the landlady’s cheery greeting came, “Come on in and drip over here.”

The bar of the Royal Oak is a good place to sit and drip onto its ancient flagstones. On the left there is a lovely old settle, piled high with the day’s newspapers. Old chapel pews provide much of the seating. We sat one end of a big, wooden table, near the cheerily lit wood burner on this July day of what the Met Office had predicted as “a barbecue summer.” There is a further room with tables behind the bar, and also a formal dining room. There were four cask bitters on offer; Cotleigh’s Tawny, Exmoor Ale, White Hart from the Taunton Brewery, and Palmer’s IPA. We drank Palmer’s, from Bridport in Dorset, on the principle that we had never tasted it before; and we enjoyed it. Although termed as IPA, it is strictly a best bitter of 4.2%. If anything, it was kept a tad on the cool side. On a Sunday morning a few months later, the Palmers had been replaced by the Cottage Brewery's Boxer Jack, a dark, sweetish brew from near Castle Cary; unusual and worth searching out.
When we had passed by the Royal Oak outside opening hours a year previously, a scan of the menu hung outside had half frightened us to death. It promised haute cuisine of the hautist kind and prices to match. Either there has been a change of policy, or even a change of ownership, as the food on the various blackboards dotted around the bar was much more user-friendly. A bowl of soup was £3.95, a baguette £5.50, and fish and chips, always a reliable signpost to value in Exmoor pubs these days, £7.95. There was a succulent selection of fresh fish dishes around the £15 mark, but then fresh fish is always an expensive treat. On a Thursday lunch time the pub was pretty busy. A large local party occupied the dining room. Four other couples were having lunch, a regular was reading the newspapers, and two elders of the village were working their way through current affairs from immigration to helicopters for Afghanistan. A solitary walker, surrounded by enough kit to storm the north face of the Eiger, ate his way stolidly through pie and veg, ice cream, and two pints of bitter. As he worked away at them, he listened through earphones, which would have graced an SOE operator of the last world war, to an MP3 player the size of a brick. What was it which so engaged his attention? The test match? Wagner’s Ring cycle? He was still there when we left.
We walked past the incredibly luxurious village hall and at a fork took the lane on the right. Soon we turned left off the lane and headed for Chargot Wood, through which we hoped to make our way back to our truck. You pass through what once must have been the parkland of Chargot House, a faintly Palladian villa which you can see above you near to the lane. Below you is a small ornamental lake with landing stages and a boat.

The famous huntsman, Captain Ronnie Wallace, once recalled that, when his family in the 1930’s took Chargot House as a holiday home for the summer, his mother looked out of the window to see his younger brother lying face down in the lake amongst the lilies. She rushed down in the nick of time to save him from drowning.
Any drowning we were doing was in the persistent rain. I wish that I could give precise directions, but we just fiddled our way through the woods, ignoring any sign to Langham, following slavishly any sign to Kennisham, and hoping for the best when, frequently, there was no sign at all. Chargot is a celebrated shoot and walking here in the autumn must be akin to a stroll through the OK Corral on the day the Clanton clan came looking for the Earp brothers.
We eventually regained the dry sanctuary of our truck. A minibus, bearing the internees of a local care home, drew up in the car park. It sat there in the pouring rain, facing the endless stretch of conifers, as a carer distributed cups of coffee from a Thermos. One old lady sat, her cheek pressed against the glass, her eyes open but unseeing, her image fading as the windows slowly misted over. It was time to go home.

Exmoor Pubs & Walks – Nine mile walk from Woody Bay Station to the Fox & Goose at Parracombe via Hunters Inn

“And, behold, the face of the ground was dry.” Hurrah! The dove had gone missing, Noah had grounded on the top of Mount Ararat, and at last Awful August and Sodden September had relented to give us a few, precious, Indian summer days. We parked in the car park of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway station above Woody Bay, albeit with some trepidation as a rather threatening padlock and chain dangled from the metal gates. The park was marked, however, with a large P on the ordinance survey map, and there was enough space for a hundred cars, and so, with a sign promising “Train Rides Today” and thus the hope that we would not find ourselves locked in on our return, we set off cheerfully up the A39 to Martinhoe Cross where we turned left into the lane for Martinhoe and Woody Bay.

This was the way the holidaymakers at the turn of the twentieth century would have come to reach the delights of Woody Bay after the railway opened in 1898. A Colonel Benjamin Lake had bought the Bay to develop it into a resort to rival Lynmouth, and there were even plans for a branch line from the station towards the beach. The project was an extravagant failure and the poor Colonel, who was a Kent solicitor, was given twelve years in the pokey for embezzling his clients’ cash to fund his dream.
Just past a bridle path on our left signed to Kemacott, we turned right through a hunting gate into the footpath across Martinhoe Common which led to Slattenslade. We marched straight across the middle of a pasture still soaking with dew and, passing through another hunting gate, crossed a lane into a huge field of cattle and sheep. We kept close to the right hand boundary and after negotiating two 5-bar gates found ourselves in the lane above Slattenslade. We turned right down to a cottage and here turned left to climb up towards the car parks above Woody Bay. At a crossroads we bore right downhill and, at a hairpin bend, turned off left into the bridleway which leads to Hunters Inn.
This is a good, broad track along which we marched at a smart, Somerset Light Infantry pace through a woodland of old oaks which stretched away down to the sea far below. It was a beautiful, sunny morning with a veil of haze where the sea faded into the sky.

The woodland eventually gave way to open heathland, where the air was rich with the earthy scent of the dying bracken, and we were rewarded with marvellous views eastwards along the coast towards Lynmouth. The sea was denim blue, patched dark by the passing clouds.

The Coastal Path was clearly visible a hundred feet or so beneath us. If we had turned right at Slattenslade, the lane would have taken us down towards the beach and given access to the path.
The bridle path, however, suited us fine, and we bowled along towards Hunters Inn. As usual a smattering of dog walkers warned us that we were getting nearer and, after passing into the woodland above Heddons Mouth, suddenly the pub was there before us. It was too early for more than a handful of customers, and we walked past the entrance and over the river before turning left into the path which led us up the valley, first through Invention Wood and then Heale Wood until we crossed the foot bridge to regain the road. Opposite was Mill Farm, whose chimney was one of those wondrous structures which have stood for so long that their stonework appears to have metamorphosed into some strange vegetable matter. It was guarded by an elderly terrier who was enlivening his twilight days by playing chicken in the road.

We walked a short way up the lane before turning right into a metalled driveway which was signposted as a footpath to a place with the delicious name of Higher Bumsley. The sunlight was slanting downwards through the trees but an icy chill fingered upwards from the stream which foamed white beneath us away towards the sea.

The path passed behind the Heddon Mill buildings, and then climbed away steeply towards Parracombe. It levelled out and then took us along through pasture land before entering a narrow path as we neared the village. There were high hazel hedges underpinned by bramble patches on either side of the way before we came down past some stone barns into the outlying hamlet of Bodley with its old cottages propped up against the weather by vast buttresses. Just past a rank of modernish houses we took a footpath which finally took us down through a maze of cottages before it tipped us out into the street just above the river bridge and the Fox & Goose.

The pub is a late Victorian building with a curious pub sign. On one side there is the fox, luridly caricatured and about to tuck into a large pie, presumably containing the goose. On the other side is the goose itself, depicted more in the slightly mystical style of a primitive cave painting. It’s an eccentric contrast.

Inside, the bar has plenty of stained tongue-and-groove woodwork and walls crowded with prints, photographs, and even framed collections of old cigarette cards, one featuring some of my favourite boxing heroes like Jack Johnson and Jimmy Wilde. There are also some splendid stuffed animals, including a stags head, which has seen better days but has fabulous antlers, and two terrific foxes at either end of the room. There is no stuffed goose.

This sympathetic ambience was rounded out by some comfortably shabby furniture, so much more preferable to the leatherette banquettes and divans favoured by some hostelries. In the background we were treated to Benny Goodman’s small groups from the late 1930’s. These days too many pubs at lunchtime use local radio as musical wallpaper to amuse a bored barman. My wife, who loathes jazz, could have done without either.
There were three proper beers, all racked up behind the bar and served straight from the barrel at the best of temperatures. Ever dedicated to drinking anything new to us, we started for the purposes of research with a pint each of Bays Gold. Bays Brewery has been brewing in Paignton only since last year, and its Gold is a typical, lemony, bitter bitter of that ilk. If you like these citrus-type ales, you will like Bays. We are not that crazy about them, and we moved on to an old favourite, Cotleigh’s Barn Owl, a dark-red kind of junior porter which we find irresistible. The Fox & Goose takes its food seriously, and charges accordingly. You can get a sandwich for less than five pounds, but the fresh fish dishes were only just short of £15 and a fillet steak would set you back £16. The cooking obviously enjoys a reputation as on a Friday lunchtime there was a respectable number of people eating. It was a grand place to sit, however, and enjoy a five star pint.
We turned left out of the pub and walked up the narrow, winding street before taking a lane to our right which led past an obviously Victorian gothic revival church. We continued past the primary school until a track led us to the original parish church of St Petrock, usually identified as a Cornish saint – Padstow is supposed to be a corruption of his name – although he was the son of a Welsh king and gives his name also to churches in Devon and Somerset. The church dates from the eleventh century and since 1879, when the other church was first planned, has disappointed all those who have expected it to fall down. John Ruskin, who donated £10, was among the many who contributed to ensure that it was not demolished and the new church built on its site. The Georgian interior is quite unspoiled with a splendid screen and lovely box pews.

We continued up the track and crossed the A39, climbing by one of the various paths at the foot of Parracombe Common. We reached a lane, turned left, and soon found the road which led us back to Martinhoe Cross and Woody Bay Station. Just before the main road there was pull-in where one could have parked if necessary.

Exmoor Pubs & Walks – Nine mile walk from Hillsford Bridge to the Blue Ball at Countisbury via the Valley of Rocks and Lynmouth

We started from the National Trust car park at Hillsford Bridge, tucked away through a gateway on the western side of the crossroads. We walked up the main A39 road until a hairpin bend, and then passed straight on into the bridle way which leads up through the Lyn Valley Woodlands Nature Reserve. We emerged from the woods where a hump on the left marked an ancient settlement, and from here on there were marvellous views, firstly over Watersmeet. With August and the summer now in terminal decline, the constant downpour had been replaced momentarily with a thick slab of sweaty grey cloud. Drizzle was never far away and hung in the valley like smoke.
As the path wound around the top of Myrtleberry Cleave, with the muffled but constant roar of the East Lynn River beneath us, we eventually found ourselves looking down the valley towards Lynmouth with its tongue of surf distant on the shoreline.
We ignored all the paths to the right which would have taken us the nearest way into the town, and waited until we could zigzag down through the woods until we emerged at the foot of the gorge at Lynbridge and crossed the river by the foot bridge. A chilly sense of tragedy lurks here. To someone of my generation, Lynton and Lynmouth are associated forever with the appalling floods of 1952 in which thirty five people perished. The disaster coincided with the period in which television sets became popular, in preparation for the coronation planned for the next year. Family friends had a set which provided this five year old with a gallery of shocking images he would never forget – the broken little Devon town, shattered by mud, rocks and water, and then a month later the death of John Cobb on Loch Ness, his speed boat spinning in its fatal somersault, disappearing in a cloud of spray and debris.
These images remain necessarily frozen in black and white, but then it was a monochrome morning as we crossed the road and headed up a lane marked as a no-through road. It took us along the top of the gorge towards the town, the way shadowed by arches of dripping trees, while below it were the roofs of houses clinging to the cliff-face. It must have taken an extraordinary effort by the Victorian and Edwardian developers of Lynton to build these villas almost hovering in mid-air. The most remarkable, perhaps, is Lynhurst which is let as a luxury holiday home, and is all gables, balconies, and bay windows, fearlessly defying gravity high above the town.
Just past the entrance to Lynhurst, the road runs down into Lynton town centre, and we walked up Allerford Terrace in an attempt to bypass it. We did so, but then made a bad mistake. Instead of a left and a right turn which would have taken us to the Valley of Rocks by a footpath, I was seduced by a road sign to the Valley which took us out of the town by a main road bordered by guest houses and a disgracefully overgrown cemetery which had a First World War memorial at its gate. Unfortunately, it also led us into the Valley past the scenic National Park public conveniences and Mother Meldrum’s teashop, promising the delights of its Ragged Jack buns.
Ragged Jack, of course, is the Valley’s signature feature. I am unable to comment on the eponymous confectionery.
As we turned on to the coastal path, there is a marvellous view westwards Castle Rock.
The path is metalled and a popular walk out of the town for those who scorn use of the two capacious car parks in the Valley itself. Eventually a rougher track forks off to the left, and we took it so that we would come out at the edge of the Western Beach and the harbour. We passed a curious notice warning against explosive mines being used for animal control. They were said to be “humane”, which presumably meant that the mole or whatever didn’t feel anything but a warm, cosy glow when blown to smithereens. We emerged at the bottom of the cliff into a horde of motorists attempting to find a parking space, and smugly threaded our way towards the harbour, past the award-winning fish and chipper and its long queue, to the footbridge near the landmark Rhenish Tower.
The channel for the river is remarkably wide, presumably as a flood defence.
After passing the pitch and putt course, the coastal path up Countisbury Hill is clearly signed. We began our ascent of this notorious incline, although a combination of modern road construction and user-friendly gear boxes has tamed the beast since my Auntie Mary became stuck here in the 1950’s, unable to go forwards and too frightened to reverse.
For a pedestrian it’s quite a climb but a pretty steady one, and eventually the tower of Countisbury church popped up over the skyline and the job was done.

We passed through the churchyard and under the arch of yews, and there was the Blue Ball in front of us.

For a number of years the pub was known tweely as the Exmoor Sandpiper but the present landlord has wisely returned it to its original name. Parts of the long, low building are seven hundred years old. The bar consists of an irregular succession of low-ceilinged, black-beamed rooms with modern pub furniture. We sat at the bar under a praiseworthy sign which promised, “Dogs, children,” and best of all, “muddy boots welcome.”

Welcome - Doughnut, the pub dog

Beers on tap were Exmoor, St Austell, and “Blue Ball Ale”. We couldn’t resist the latter, even when we discovered that it wasn’t homebrew but our old friend Cousin Jack in disguise. It was served at just the right temperature and made excellent drinking, proving that a pint of old-fashioned boy’s bitter sometimes slips down just as well as a high-alcohol speciality. Food is middle of the road, both in price and variety. Baguettes and filled spuds were change from a fiver, and mains were £8.95. The blackboard is half way down the bar area.
On the wall is a magnificent boar’s head. One recent landlord even re-named the pub the “Blue Boar”, but when he left for America he took the head with him. The present incumbent went out and found another.

We knew the way well back to Hillsford Bridge. We took the bridle way just above the pub which leads down to Watersmeet, and then hiked up the river bank back to our truck.