Watersmeet Exmoor
Watersmeet in the East Lyn Valley near Lynmouth in Exmoor National Park is the meeting point of the East Lyn River and Hoar Oak Water, a confluence of two fast-flowing streams in a deep wooded gorge of exceptional beauty managed by the National Trust. The combination of the wooded gorge, the rushing streams and the Victorian fishing lodge at the confluence, now serving as a National Trust café, creates one of the most rewarding and most consistently visited short walks on Exmoor. The gorge of the East Lyn is one of the finest examples of Atlantic oakwood in the national park, its sessile oak woodland thriving in the humid, sheltered conditions of the valley and creating the layered, moss-covered character of a genuinely ancient woodland. The valley sides above the path are steep and wooded throughout, and the combination of the rushing water, the mature oak trees and the narrow rocky path provides an experience of enclosed natural drama characteristic of the Exmoor gorge woodlands. The 1952 Lynmouth flood, in which the East Lyn River rose catastrophically following exceptional rainfall on Exmoor and destroyed much of the village of Lynmouth below, was one of the most destructive natural disasters in post-war Britain. The power of the river that now runs peacefully below the Watersmeet path is fully comprehensible after understanding what this valley can contain in extreme conditions. The walk from Lynmouth up the East Lyn valley to Watersmeet and return provides one of the most rewarding short walks on Exmoor, the combination of the woodland, the water and the gorge scenery providing a complete valley experience.