Minehead Somerset
Minehead is the largest seaside resort on the Exmoor coast, a town at the foot of North Hill above the Bristol Channel providing good sandy beach, Victorian and Edwardian seafront buildings and an excellent position as the starting point of the South West Coast Path. The town serves as the principal gateway to Exmoor, the combination of coastal and moorland walking creating one of the most complete coastal and upland visitor bases in the southwest.
The South West Coast Path begins at Minehead, the waymarker post on the seafront marking the start of the longest National Trail in Britain extending 1,014 kilometres to Poole Harbour in Dorset. The first section from Minehead along the Exmoor coast toward Porlock provides some of the finest and most demanding walking of the entire route.
The North Hill above the town provides excellent walking accessible directly from the seafront, the combination of the wooded combes and the open heather moorland of the upper hill creating a miniature version of the Exmoor landscape immediately above the coastal resort.