Exmoor Walks with Rivers: Following the Exe, Barle, Lyn and Horner Water

Discover the best Exmoor walks shaped by rivers including the Exe, Barle, Lyn and Horner Water – a richly detailed guide to the moor’s most beautiful waterways.

Robber's Bridge

Exmoor is shaped by its rivers. From the wild, boggy heights of the Chains to wooded valleys and hidden coastal combes, water defines the landscape at every turn. To understand Exmoor properly, you have to follow its rivers — and there is no better place to begin than with the great stream that gives the moor its name.

If you are interested in this article then check out our Exmoor walks page.

Exe Cleave carries the young River Exe towards the distant sea

The River Exe – Exmoor’s Defining Waterway

Any study of Exmoor’s waterways has to start with the big granddaddy of them all – the river that gives the place its name. The Exe is 60-something miles of pure riverine glory - but it’s one of those streams that could, at birth, have saved itself a lot of trouble. Had it flowed north it would have reached the sea-board of the Exmoor coast in just a few miles.

The River Exe emerges from a huge morass - a sort of high bog-land - known as The Chains. Exe Plain is just part of this great sponge-like area which lies northwest of Simonsbath and south of Lynton and Lynmouth. Rivers pour forth all around it, including the mighty Barle, which later becomes a tributary of the Exe.

The Exe is born in the loneliest hills of Exmoor

The Exe begins its journey south by heading east, passing through the very heartland of central Exmoor as it goes. As it leaves the Chains so it gouges an extraordinary ‘V’ shaped valley called Preyway Meads, before entering the deep and awesome Exe Cleave.

The occasional pile of sheep bones supplies all the evidence one needs to recognise that life is tough up here. The men who worked the mine that is situated 100 foot or so above the river in Exe Cleave must have been particularly hardy. The Honeymead Mine is where the Plymouth Iron Company raised 500 tons of ore in 1858.

Exford is situated in the river valley at a point which could, arguably, be described as the very heart of the national park. It's an attractive place which plays host to a good deal of the area's equine activities.

The pretty Exmoor village of Winsford

Past the village, the river now enters one of its most beautiful stretches. The hills close in on the stream as it makes its way to Winsford - there are no roads or cars in the deep demesne - just the rush of the river and the occasional bark of a wild red deer.

Winsford, with its famous thatched pub and village green, is popular with visitors who gather around the babbling Winn Brook as it passes the tea gardens to join the larger river.

A mile or two later the Exe meets the River Quarme – which has come down from the lonely expanses of the Dunkery range - and now it turns south towards the distant English Channel. It flows through the hamlet of Bridgetown and wriggles and writhes its way to its confluence with the Barle.

The River Barle curls its way through some of Exmoor's loneliest valleys

The Barle – From Pinkery Pond to Dulverton

In its bid to leave The Chains, the Barle has its first moment of glory at Pinkery Pond. I can never go there without thinking of wretched Richard Gammin, whose body was found in its cold dark depths 105 years ago. Six years after his wife died, leaving him with 10 children to raise, farmer Gammin sought the attentions of a young Parracombe girl. Her letter, refusing his offers of love, was found in his jacket by the side of the lake. Lynmouth lifeboat crew sent up a small boat so the depths could be dragged, a diver from Wales was brought in - all to no avail. There was only one thing for it - Pinkery Pond had to be drained.

The River Barle above Simonsbath

The dam was equipped with two large plugholes, but nothing could budge the bungs. Teams of horses were attached to chains, but the iron rings on the plugs simply broke off. Eventually brilliant Bob Jones, the man who built the Lynton-Lynmouth Cliff Railway, devised an elaborate system of rams to push the bungs out from the other side of the dam. And so the pond was drained on the first of just two occasions in its long history. The remains of broken-hearted Gammin were found and herons came in flocks and ate all the fish.

Pinkery Pond - or Pinkworthy to give the proper name

A grim story for what is otherwise a very jolly and beautiful river. The Barle passes Simonsbath, flows under lovely arched Landacre Bridge, slips through handsome little Withypool and ducks and dives through deep woods past famous Tarr Steps.

It then arrives at Dulverton, Exmoor’s capital, before being swallowed by its big sister a mile or two south of the town at Exbridge.

The River Barle near Tarr Steps

The Lyn Rivers – Wild Valleys and Watersmeet

The Lyn Rivers are the moor’s other best-known waterways. The East Lyn begins where the Badgworthy and Oare Waters meet at Malmsmead. It tumbles past the village of Brendon and accelerates down the ever narrowing, ever steeper, gradient past the hamlet of Rockford and its pub. Shortly after the inn the river enters a sylvan chasm – on either side, woods seem to reach vertically for the skies.

West Lyn River

Eventually it arrives at famous Watersmeet, where the National Trust has a splendid tearoom. Here the river meets a combination of Farley and Hoaroak Waters – and a more dramatic riverine spot you’d be hard pushed to find.

Now the East Lyn is up to full strength. Rock crags hang above the ravine and scree-slopes slither and slide between the trees. The valley at Myrtleberry Cleave seems too steep for itself – like an overweight person whose seams have come undone. With a few final twists and turns, the East Lyn tumbles under Wester Wood and Oxen Tor to reach Lynmouth where it is joined by its lesser-known, shorter, but equally beautiful sister, the West Lyn.

Lynmouth, where the Lyn Rivers meet the sea

In the last mile or two of either river, it is easy to see how the Lynmouth Flood Disaster occurred – even on a summer’s day the steepness of the coombes and the spate of the water make for an awesome combination.

Horner Water runs down through Exmoor's ancient woodlands

Horner Water – Woods, Wildlife and Porlock Vale

Horner Water is Exmoor’s other much-celebrated stream. The writer N.V. Allen says Horner is, “Probably derived from the British ‘hwrnwr’ meaning ‘the snorer’, recalling the sonorous sound of its water in spate.”

To find its source you must travel along one of Exmoor’s loneliest roads - the lane that leads from the top of Porlock Hill to Exford. There’s a fork called Lucott Cross and just south of this there's a gentle depression between Alderman’s Barrow Allotment and Hurdle Down. That’s where you’ll find the birthplace of Chetsford Water.

For that is what the Horner is called during its high moorland infancy. After meeting with Embercombe Water, Chetsford turns into Nutscale Water, which soon veers north to eventually issue into the reservoir that bears its name, built in 1941 after years of arguments and municipal infighting.

Chetsford Water

Shortly downstream, the river makes a big curve to the east as it avoids Tarr Ball Hill and, for the first time, it enters forest. These are the deep woods for which Horner Water has become internationally renowned. Indeed, the woods that surround Horner Water make up one of the largest blocks of semi-natural woodland to be found anywhere in the country. The place is regarded as important for its vast array of lichens. There are more than 330 types, including many rarities that only manage to survive in the vicinity because there's so little pollution.

Most of the area is National Trust-owned and the organisation has done a great deal of interesting environmental work here over the past few decades.

The writer Richard Jefferies adored the place. 120 years ago he stood somewhere in these woods and wrote in his book Red Deer: "I caught sight of a red mark in the midst of an acre of brake surrounded by oak. I was sure it was a stag instantly by the bright colour, by the position. He was standing in the fern beside a bush, with his head down as if feeding. A whistle - the sound was a moment or two reaching him - made him lift his head, and the upright carriage of the neck proved once again that it was a stag and not a hind."

Lovely Cloutsham Farm dominates the spur of hill that shares its name. East Water Valley flows down from Aller, Sweetworthy and Bagley Combes, dividing Cloutsham Ball from the main Dunkery range.

The ford at Cloutsham

The remains of an ancient village can still be seen at Bagley. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book. I have also heard tell of the two hapless Huguenot ladies who once lived in a hovel hereabouts. They had fallen on very bad times indeed - so bad that they died of starvation in their hovel, being too proud to announce their poverty to the world.

Once Horner Water has joined East Water it makes no bones about dashing to the sea. Within a mile or so it is passing the hamlet of Horner and, free of the hills, is running through the fertile lowlands of Porlock Vale. Past the rural idyll of West Luccombe it cloaks itself in a long spinney to eventually join the River Aller at Bossington.

Bossington, with its thatched cottages and wonderfully tall, cylindrical chimneys, is part of the huge estate that was given to the National Trust by the Acland family.

Now Horner Water reaches the sea - or it would, if there wasn’t a huge shingle bank in the way. Sometimes, after very heavy rains, the river summons up the strength to knock a channel through the stones, but mostly it is content to filter down through the pebbles to meet its salty end.

Horner Water eventually arrives at Bossington Beach