Best West Country Walks for a Heatwave: Cool Hiking Routes in the South West
Favourite West Country Hikes and Weather Challenges
Over the two decades I was writing a regular weekly walks article here in the West Country I was asked countless questions by readers - the most common of which was: “What’s your favourite hike?” Impossible to answer. This region has some of the best walking routes to be found anywhere in Europe, so picking just one would be like trying to name your favourite piece of music. Too many to choose from. An embarrassment of riches.
Fingle Bridge on the River Teign
The second most regular query concerned the weather. Not exactly surprising, as any region which protrudes out into a giant ocean will see a lot of it.
The first thing you reach for when talking about meteorology and outdoor pursuits is the well-known phrase coined by author and fell walker Alfred Wainwright: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing…”
So true. With one exception. A heatwave. It could be that dear old Wainwright, who died in 1991, was not exactly aux-fait with heatwaves. There weren’t quite so many Met Office heat warnings during his lifetime of hiking over those tall, cool northerly Lake District hills.
You can purchase amazing gear to keep warm in icy conditions and there’s plenty of stuff which will keep the rain out but… Although you can buy excellent lightweight clothing capable of wicking sweat off your body, you cannot really do anything to keep life and soul comfortable and cool on a really hot and humid day.
Walking in the countryside on a lovely sunny day is a big temptation, but if it’s going to be really hot there is only one remedy… Choose the right kind of location. Some places by their nature remain cooler than others. In the South West these can be rounded up into four basic types:
The airy ridge ramble
The coastal ridge ramble
The coastal clamber with a potential for some shade
The foray into deep, cool forests
View from Staple Plain on the Quantocks, an airy ridge if ever therfe was one
Airy Ridge Rambles: Cooling Breezes and Panoramic Views
Note the word ridge. All uplands are cooler than lowlands, but in a heatwave the centre of a large plateau like Dartmoor can be just as stifling as the bottom of a deep Westcountry vale. Ridges, however, attract breezes from all angles and so offer the premium zone of heatwave hiking. But do take plenty of water and UV protection - you might be enjoying a cooling breeze, but ridge walking can see you burned as a crisp if you’re not careful.
Perhaps the best ridge of them all for breezy walking with stupendous views is the Quantock Hills AONB - which, really, is one big ridge that rises between Taunton and Bridgwater in the south, and marches north to the Bristol Channel at West Quantoxhead.
Looking west from the Quantock Hills
The latter offers a good entry point to the hills - by which I mean the car park at Staple Plain, above St Audries. It’s fairly easy to find – turn off the main Minehead to Bridgwater road, ascend past villas to the little crossroads – and go straight across up the very steep incline that will take you to the edge of the Quantock ridge.
An ancient track will take you directly up to Beacon Hill, and you will find yourself in a very cool place indeed, certainly when it comes to panoramic views. Or, as Coleridge put it, perhaps inspired by this very spot: “Sea and hill and wood, with all the numberless goings on of life, inaudible as dreams…”
I’d recommend walking around Beacon Hill on what is called the Great Road which eventually joins the main ridge track heading south past Bicknoller Post to Thorncombe Barrow. Here you have a choice – you can turn right down Bicknoller Coombe and then take the path that leads between the lower fringe of the moorland and the fields back to your starting point via Weacombe, or you can visit the village of Bicknoller by walking further on down the hill to Trendle Lane. The return route from the village also takes the path via Weacombe.
Upper part of Staple Plain
Alternatively you can spin on your heels and return from whence you came thinking of Coleridge’s cooling words…
"On seaward Quantock's heathy hills,/
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills/
Float here and there, like things astray,/
And high o'erhead the sky-lark shrills.”
Coastal Ridge Ramble: Brean Down and Panoramic Sea Views
It’s even more important to take some kind of head-covering and plenty of sunscreen on this type of hot-weather hike because the sea will bounce the light back up at you for a double sunshine whammy. We’re talking about high and mighty headlands here - and one of the best in the region is to be found at Brean Down.
Shade side: Brean Down looking to to Steep Holm
It is in fact the most westerly ridge of the Mendip Hills, albeit slightly divorced from its mother-uplands by thousands of years of erosion caused by Somerset’s River Axe.
The three-and-a-half mile return-walk from the village of Brean on the shores of Somerset Levels, up the steep limestone ridge and out to the end of the remarkable west-pointing peninsula called Brean Down, offers some of the most extraordinary coastal walking to be found anywhere in the region.
The hike not only provides vast panoramas in just about every direction, it also introduces you to forts ancient and modern, the remains of a Roman temple, medieval field systems and the opportunity to see numerous seabirds and rare plants.
Coastal Clamber with Some Shade: Combe Martin to Ilfracombe
Coasts have breezes. Sometimes these turn into full-blown gales, but as I write these words in a heatwave, a cooling sea-breeze seems just about the most wonderful thing imaginable. The trouble with coasts, though, is that they tend to be fairly treeless. Salt-laden winds and trees don’t always mix - and you need some shade in a heatwave even if you have a breeze.
Ilfracombe on a warm day
The one-way walk from Combe Martin to Ilfracombe offers some shade and a great deal of interest, although you’ll have to catch a bus back, which you might be only too pleased about in the rawness of a sweltering afternoon.
Combe Martin
To begin, you climb west out of Combe Martin and follow the South West Coast Path which nips and tucks behind a caravan park and follows the main road for a way only to rejoin the coast path and descend through a cool and elegant tunnel of beeches where you can catch glimpses of Golden Cove far below.
Walkers continue past Egg Rock and Turk's Cave before sweeping down over the meadows to Small Mouth. From here, you can take a detour to The Warren, the headland that turns Watermouth into a kind of fjord, or continue inland toward Widmouth Head and on to Hele Bay, before entering the grand Hillsborough Nature Reserve overlooking Ilfracombe.
Looking to Ilfracombe’s east coast
Cool Woodland Walk: Cotehele and the Tamar Valley
This walk offers both deep shady forests and a cooling river. Cotehele, on the Cornish bank of the Tamar, is so beautiful you sometimes have to pinch yourself while striding around its sylvan, riverine estate.
Park in the National Trust car park and do, please, visit the house before or after enjoying your walk. But our hike begins by descending to the riverside and following the way-marked path to Cotehele Quay, one of the most picturesque corners of the Tamar.
Cotehele Quay
From here, cross Cotehele Bridge over the Morden Stream, pass the historic lime-kilns, and head into Elbow Wood before continuing into Comfort Wood and onwards toward Newton and Danescombe. Along the way you’ll encounter a renovated paper mill, the remains of historic mines, and the Cotehele Sawmill, once linked to the river by a tramway.
In the woods above Cotehele Quay
The route loops back to Cotehele Quay via a scenic viewpoint over Calstock and its striking viaduct, passing the Chapel in the Wood before returning riverside.
These are just some of the cooling walks I can think of, there are plenty more across our Atlantic peninsula
North Devon coast
