Moorlands are one of the categories of open spaces that the government has opened to all and sundry and Exmoor has a good many of them, I'm glad to say - though I was rather surprised to learn that the public already enjoyed free access to about 60 percent of the moors inside the National Park area before the right to roam act.
No road in the region enjoys such vicinity to wide swathes of access land as the wild and winding lane that leads between the villages of Exford and Porlock. Right through the heart of the moor, in fact. This one lane is capable of introducing hikers to more fabulous routes than any other single roadway in the region.
Basic hike: from Chetsford Water on the high Exford-Porlock road, down past Nutscale Reservoir and across into Hawk Combe before gaining Porlock - and back via Hawk Combe and Lucott Moor.
Distance and going: 10 miles - one or two steep bits.
This walk begins in one of the windiest, wettest, coldest places
in the entire Westcountry and if you go in winter, like I did, you
may be extremely loathe to get out of your car. But I promise, this
walk is worth a little discomfort at the start.
The uncomfortable corner is to be found on the high road that wends
north over the top of Exmoor from Simonsbath to Lynmouth. Anyone
who knows his or her regional geography will realise that we’re
talking about an area not far from the infamous Chains – one
of the most exposed places in the whole of southern Britain.
Note that all maps on this site are only indicative.
You should never set out without the correct OS map.
But which section to chose? That was the question that faced us. When in doubt, you can do worse than revisit childhood. There is a tuck and a bend along the road that takes the motorist into a tiny valley in which there is a tinkling stream, and well I remember the delights of exploring this unmessed-about-with, unpolluted water as a boy.
Chetsford Water (you'll see it on Ordnance Survey's Exmoor Outdoor Leisure Map- grid ref: SS848419), surrounded by the welcome purple lines that mean you can wander wherever you will. It isn't Chetsford Water for long, as it mysteriously turns into Nutscale Water after it's been fed by Embercombe Water, but it's all very, very picturesque.
The walk we did took us down the water course with a sort of vague idea that we might come back another way. We would see what we would see - which is part of the joy of being free to go anywhere you want.
We had been informed that we might find the remains of prehistoric man in the shallow valley under Great Hill, but not a single sign of his comings and goings could we spy.
Apparently the little valley may have an archaeological rarity called ‘ring-cairns'. We did however enjoy the stunted hawthorns and rowans and mountain ash that punctuate the way downstream. And we did hear a cuckoo. My first cuckoo this year and, unlike the meadow pippets whose nests he may violate, I was exhilarated by the haunting, exotic call.
As mentioned, Chetsford turns into Nutscale Water which then turns north and eventually issues into the reservoir that bears its name. Nutscale Reservoir is a dark affair that nestles in the hills with an air of brooding. When I was three years of age I posed here for a press photo illustrating some article my father wrote about "The driest summer since 1750…"
It was October 1959, in case you're interested, and Nutscale was as low as anyone had ever seen it. Not that the lake had been in place for long - only in 1941 was the reservoir completed after years of arguments and municipal infighting. And then, two months after Minehead's drinking water came flowing from its new Exmoor supply, a 1,000 lb high explosive German bomb was dropped in an attempt to blow the dam. Fortunately it missed and merely made a dent in the hillside nearby.
Looking at myself in the old press photo now, I wonder where all the intervening years have gone. I was soon finding out on the walk because we had a long way to trudge and my limbs were able to remind me of a lifetime's excesses. The trudge took us along the path to the south of the lake, which we followed until it crossed the small lane that leads down to the dam. Slightly to the left, a we could see a path bearing off along the contours to the north, and this we took to eventually find ourselves dropping past Nutscale Mill down into the deep valley under Tarr Ball.
Opposite, Luckott Farm was perched on its ridge and up to this ancient place we clambered, following the zig-zag footpath to the top where we turned right along the farm track.
After a few hundred yards we found a yellow dot on our left that marked the path down into Hawk Combe. Here, the birthday-girl decided she wanted lunch, so nothing would do but to prepare downstream to Porlock where we visited the excellent Ship Inn. "Did you know Samuel Taylor Coleridge once supped here? " I asked the celebrant - to which a friendly barman butted in to say: "He did indeed - he sat there," and pointed to an antique settle. It was as if the poet had only just left.
It was a long walk back up Hawk Combe - all the way to the top where the spur comes down under Bromham Farm. Up this spur a footpath ascends, ever westwards, to reach the moors. Now we were back on public access land and I felt free to change my bearings to the south. Past long-lost Berry Castle and its earthworks we wandered, following the bare moorland on a course parallel to the Exford-Porlock road.
Only we three and the skylarks moved upon the great naked purple splodge of Lucott Moor, which is where we eventually spied our car and it looked most welcome, parked under a beech hedge - as if it were some friendly harbinger of home.
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