The poets Coleridge and Wordsworth
liked to share this exquisite Quantock walk with their literary
pals, and what was good enough for them is most certainly just the
ticket for any Westcountry walker exactly 200 years later...
A delightful blend of hauntingly beautiful coombes best enjoyed
with a sprinkling of Bohemian banter, followed by lofty ridges with
an Ancient Mariner's view of the sea, and all washed down with a
few pints of best bitter in the cosy nook of a flag-stone floored
English pub - what could be better?
Basic Walk: from Holford over the Quantock Ridge
to Crowcombe, then back via alternative paths.
Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 104
Quantock Hills.
Distance and Going: seven miles easy going, a
few steep climbs.
The hike starts at Holford, the village which is at the foot of
one of the most beautiful wooded valley systems to be found anywhere
in England. It's easy to find both village green and car park and
from here you simply head for the hills on the track which divides
the two.
Note that all maps on this site are only indicative.
You should never set out without the correct OS map.
The aim of the walk is to cross the
Quantocks from one side to the other, have a drink and some lunch
over at Crowcombe, and return by a different route. The hike starts
not half a mile away from where William Wordsworth and his sister
Dorothy lived for one memorable year between 1797 and 98 in the
fine old house at Alfoxton.
Memorable because of the "immortal friendship", as it's
often described, which they developed here with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
And what these three liked to do best was to go on long walks which,
according to Dorothy, "extend for miles over the hilltops,
the great beauty of which is their wild simplicity." Nice work
if you can get it - and you can, because by entering Hodder's Combe
you'll be embarking on one of the main routes which took the three
friends onto their beloved hills.
This is probably the very path imagined
in Coleridge's excellent "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison"
in which he writes of friends enjoying a walk on The Quantocks while
he must stay at home with a badly scolded foot.
He imagines his friends:
"On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told ;
The roaring dell, o'er wooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun..."
Now we enter a terrain where it's wise to tuck your trousers into
your socks. The top of The Quantocks are cloaked in bracken and
with their population of wild red deer these the hills make an ideal
breeding ground for the sort of ticks which can give you Lime's
Disease.
I know two wildlife photographers who
search each other for these unwelcome parasites like a couple of
chimpanzees after a visit to the hill. And indeed it' best to take
no chances as some Westcountry moorlands have become seriously infested...
Whether or not Coleridge worried about such bugs it's hard to say.
He was addicted to Black Drop, the most powerful opium mixture of
time which may, of course, been partly responsible for strange and
beautiful works such as "The Ancient Mariner."
Up here, on the high Quantock ridge path, as the rain clouds part
and you see before you a great vista of vale and sea stretching
off toward Minehead, it's as good a place as any in which to read
this or any of his other extraordinary works...
"Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow!"
What a way to describe this memorable
view, but you've time to stand and stare - you must be off down
Crowcombe for lunch. To this turn left along the ridge top track
and follow it south until you reach Crowcombe Park Gate then take
a sharp right before you reach the metalled road. The idea is to
get onto the footpath which descends around the northern limits
to Crowcombe Park eventually entering the village near Grime's Farm.
From there it's just a few hundred metres to the excellent Carew
Arms. After refreshment you can wander out the other side of the
village alongside the road in the Taunton direction passing the
preaching cross, gates to the manor, the church and the ancient
church house. Just past the school a footpath climbs away to the
left of the road and takes you up to the little lane that leads
up to Quantock Coombe.
Now, I'm afraid, you are in for a steep climb. Up the coombe we
go to reach the path that wends around Fire Beacon on your left.
Eventually you will find yourself just across the bank from the
ridge track. Turn left and walk back to Crowcombe Park Gate, cross
the road and - instead of following the ridgeway back the way you
came - head due north over Frog Hill and down the small ridge which
divides Frog Coombe and Lady's Coombe.
These two become Holford Coombe once they have joined
forces - and to finish this walk all you have to do is walk down
it's lovely length back to the village which gave it a name.
Or, to put it in Coleridge's far more romantic words:
"But Oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!"
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