Scenic Point in Somerset

Dulverton is the southern gateway to Exmoor National Park, a small market town on the River Barle in Somerset whose combination of the independent shops, the excellent cafes and restaurants serving local Exmoor produce, the Exmoor National Park visitor centre and the walks directly from the town into the Barle Valley woodland and moorland above creates one of the most rewarding and most welcoming small towns in the national park. The town serves as the administrative centre of the national park and its character reflects the pastoral and market town traditions of south Exmoor. The River Barle flowing through the town provides the natural focal point and the riverside walk upstream from the town through the ancient oak woodland of the Barle Valley is one of the finest accessible walks from any Exmoor town, the combination of the clear river, the sessile oak woodland and the red deer that inhabit the valley creating a wildlife and landscape experience of considerable quality within easy walking distance of the town centre. The deer grazing in the fields above the town and in the woodland of the surrounding hills provide a direct connection to the red deer population of Exmoor, one of the finest herds in England and the subject of the stag-hunting tradition that has been a controversial but central part of Exmoor's social culture for centuries. The Exmoor pony herds visible on the high moor above the town provide another characteristic element of the Exmoor landscape.

Dunkery Beacon is the highest point on Exmoor and the highest point in both Somerset and the Exmoor National Park, a summit of 519 metres above sea level on the central moorland of Exmoor whose combination of the open heather moorland, the panoramic views and the accessibility from several directions makes it the most visited summit in the national park. The views from the beacon extend on clear days to Wales, the Mendip Hills, the Quantocks and the Bristol Channel coast in a panorama that encompasses the full extent of the southwest peninsula and the northern Somerset coast. The walk from the Webber's Post car park near Cloutsham provides the most popular approach, a straightforward moorland path through heather and across the characteristic deep peat of the Exmoor central moors that takes approximately forty-five minutes to the summit cairn. The summit cairn marks the highest point and the open country in every direction, unobstructed by trees or buildings, provides the complete Exmoor moorland experience in its most concentrated form. The red deer herds for which Exmoor is most celebrated are frequently visible on the moorland around Dunkery, particularly in the early morning and evening when the deer descend from the higher ground to graze in the valley below. The autumn rut, when the stag roaring can be heard across the moorland in October, is the most dramatic season for red deer watching and the Dunkery area is one of the most reliable sections of Exmoor for observing the spectacle.

Dunster is one of the most attractive and most completely realised medieval small towns in Somerset, a settlement in the Vale of Porlock below Exmoor whose combination of the castle on the hill above, the octagonal Yarn Market in the broad main street, the medieval priory church and the working watermill creates one of the most complete and most visually rewarding historical townscapes in the southwest. The castle, the market and the mill are all managed by the National Trust and the combination of these three properties in a single visit provides an excellent introduction to the medieval economic, social and defensive life of a Somerset market town. Dunster Castle occupies a commanding hill above the village and the combination of its medieval origins and its seventeenth-century domestic conversion into a comfortable country house creates an interior of considerable interest and quality. The plaster ceilings, the carved staircase and the leather wall hangings of the principal rooms reflect the domestic ambitions of the Luttrell family who occupied the castle for six centuries, and the National Trust has preserved these interiors with exceptional care. The Yarn Market of 1609, an octagonal market building in the middle of the High Street, is one of the finest surviving examples of a medieval market building in England and provides the visual centrepiece of the town's historic streetscape. The watermill below the castle, the last working watermill in Somerset, produces stoneground flour that is sold in the mill shop.

Glastonbury Tor rises with dramatic abruptness from the Somerset Levels, its conical form topped by the tower of St Michael's Church creating one of the most immediately recognisable landmarks in England and one of the most spiritually charged places in the British Isles. Standing 158 metres above the flat plain surrounding it, the hill is visible for remarkable distances across the Somerset landscape and the tower at its summit, all that remains of a medieval church, has served as a landmark, a place of pilgrimage and a focus of mythological and spiritual speculation across many centuries. The Tor's significance in the wider story of Glastonbury and its legends is inseparable from the town below. The whole complex of myths connecting Glastonbury with Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail, the Arthurian legends and the oldest Christian foundation in Britain places the Tor at the spiritual centre of a tradition that has attracted seekers and pilgrims from many traditions for centuries. In contemporary spiritual culture the Tor is one of the principal sites of the pagan, Wiccan and earth mysteries movements alongside the more mainstream Christian pilgrimage tradition, and the combination of these overlapping traditions gives the hill a vibrancy of human significance unusual in any landscape feature of its modest physical scale. The terracing on the slopes of the Tor, particularly visible on the southeast face when the light catches it at a low angle, has generated sustained scholarly and popular interest. Proposed explanations include medieval strip cultivation of the slopes, a prehistoric ritual spiral path ascending the hill, or simple natural erosion processes, and no consensus has been established despite considerable investigation. The walk to the summit, approximately fifteen minutes on well-maintained paths from the National Trust car park in the town, passes through the terraced slopes and provides progressively expanding views over the Levels.

Porlock Hill is one of the most notorious road climbs in England, a gradient of one in four at its steepest section on the A39 road descending from the Exmoor plateau to the village of Porlock and the sea on the Somerset coast, whose combination of extreme steepness, sharp bends and the possibility of brake failure on a descent has made it a landmark for generations of motorists and a subject of both dread and satisfaction in motoring folklore. The hill descends approximately 400 metres over approximately three kilometres with several hairpin bends on the main road, and a toll road alternative provides an easier gradient for those whose vehicles or nerves cannot manage the main route. The view from the top of Porlock Hill, where the A39 crosses the edge of Exmoor at the characteristic moorland landscape of heather and gorse, is one of the finest coastal viewpoints in Somerset, the Bristol Channel visible below and the Vale of Porlock in the middle ground with Porlock village and its church visible in the valley and the coast extending toward the west. The descent of the hill itself provides a series of changing views of the vale and coast that reward the concentration required to drive safely in conditions where the gradient demands very careful use of gears and brakes. The village of Porlock at the bottom of the hill is one of the most attractive on the Somerset coast, its thatched cottages and medieval church of considerable charm, and the Porlock Weir harbour a short walk west provides a picturesque small harbour with direct access to the pebbly beach of the Exmoor coast. The Exmoor coastal walking from Porlock Weir along the South West Coast Path provides some of the finest cliff walking in the southwest, the English Channel opening toward the west as the path climbs above the shore.

Watchet is a small harbour town on the Somerset coast at the foot of the Quantock Hills, a working port of considerable historical depth and modest visual charm whose combination of the active harbour, the local museum, the connection with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the character of an unfashionable but genuine working coastal community makes it one of the more interesting small destinations on this section of the coast. The harbour was operational from the Saxon period and the town's long history as a port for the Somerset and Bristol Channel trade gives it an economic and historical depth that more obviously picturesque coastal settlements sometimes lack. The connection with Coleridge is the most culturally significant dimension of Watchet's identity. Coleridge is believed to have conceived The Rime of the Ancient Mariner while walking with William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth in the Quantocks in November 1797, and the mariners departing from a small Somerset harbour that features in the poem has been associated with Watchet since at least the early nineteenth century. A statue of the Ancient Mariner on the harbourside, erected in 2003, commemorates the connection with one of the most celebrated poems in the English language. The Watchet Market House Museum provides an excellent local history of the port and the surrounding Somerset coast, and the West Somerset Railway, one of the longest preserved steam railways in Britain, connects Watchet with Minehead to the west and Bishops Lydeard to the east.