The Most Varied Coast in Britain: From Mudflats to Ancient Pavements
- Martin Hesp
- Apr 3
- 5 min read
It is arguably the most varied stretch of coast anywhere in Britain – or anywhere in Europe for that matter. The mighty littoral that caps this peninsula to the north begins at low lying shores of the Somerset Levels and climbs to England’s highest sea-cliffs before it eventually swings south to embrace some of the UK’s finest surfing beaches.
Our journey along this extraordinary shore begins at the mouth of the River Parrett. Nothing much happens at lonely Steart, perched improbably on the flatlands by the muddiest estuary in the region. With its silos and chicken-sheds, Steart seems to be a village at the end of the world – and at the end of two fantastic rights-of-way: the West Somerset Coast Path and the River Parrett Trail.
A great empty beach stretches around to Stolford where my old friend, the late Brendan Sellick, the mud-horse fisherman, used to make a living by going out across the deadly mudflats of Bridgwater Bay on his weird wooden contraption to catch unbelievably delicious shrimps.
Travelling west, the coast between Hinkley Point nuclear power station and the village of St Audries is extraordinary to say the least. Tortured rock strata bends and twists in the cliffs, and vast limestone “pavements” stretch seawards in huge curves as if they were installed by artistic giants from some ancient race. The area is rich in fossils and is internationally renowned as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Watchet: A Port of Enigmas and Sea Shanties
Next comes Watchet, an ancient port more full of enigmas and idiosyncrasies than most. It somehow has the feel of a community that has been scooped up lock-stock-and-barrel from the industrial north of England and deposited on the West Country coast.
Nevertheless, it is a place of enormous charm. It boasts the largest museum collection of flat-bottomed boats anywhere in the world and has a church named after a saint who was thanked by locals for his preachings by having his head cut off. The town is supposed to be run by an ancient organ of local authority known as a Court Leet, but members only meet once a year and only then if a secret recipe rum punch is served.
Watchet is famous as the final home and resting place of Yankee Jack, the mariner who gave us such shanties and songs as 'A Rovin', 'Rio Grande', 'Shenandoah', and 'The Sailor Likes His Bottle O'.
Minehead: Jurassic Forests and Submarine Secrets
Past the little resort of Blue Anchor and beyond Dunster Beach, Minehead is dominated by a great bastion of hill that acts as a backdrop to the town and its harbour. It is a town of two halves—a resort that can't make up its mind whether to be a class act snuggling up to Exmoor National Park, or throw caution and candy-floss to the wind and go the way of the fish’n’chip scented cheap and cheerful.
The Minehead I love is a place of ancient Hobby Horses, antediluvian fish weirs, and historic smugglers. The harbour end of town has more history in its sea-borne finger than most ports have from the top of their slipways to the base of their groynes. How many can boast their own prehistoric submarine forest?
Walk seawards at low tide from the venerable quay and you'll paddle your way to an area which is Somerset's answer to Jurassic Park. Bits of wood and tree stump lie about the place like victims of some fairly recent flood. But when this forest was growing, sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths were walking between the trees.
The Wild Exmoor Littoral
North Hill trails west as if it were specially designed to protect West Somerset from the ravages of the sea. Far below, the ramparts of Hurlestone Point introduce the sublime curve of Porlock Bay. The old shingle ridge was breached a few years ago, and now a couple of hundred acres are metamorphosing into what has been described as the UK’s fastest-changing environment.
At the far west end of the bay, picturesque Porlock Weir squats under the mighty tree-covered hills like a port in a dream. Now we are into the Exmoor coast proper—there is no town or village along this perpendicular littoral for a dozen or more miles.
There is, though, a tiny hamlet containing Culbone Church, the smallest complete church in Great Britain. The nave is just 21 feet by 12 feet. High above sits Ash Farm, where the poet Coleridge may or may not have written Kubla Khan before being interrupted by the famous “person from Porlock.”
Lynmouth: The Town on the Torrent
After the wilderness of the North Devon Foreland, you enter the vast amphitheatre of Lynmouth Bay. Lynton and Lynmouth enjoy some of the most panoramic views in the West Country, yet the place has witnessed both life-crushing disaster and life-saving courage.
Its name gives a clue to its fate. Llynna comes from the Anglo-Saxon and means torrent. The day of reckoning came on August 15th, 1952, when more than 90 million tons of water cascaded down the steep narrow valleys, causing the Lynmouth Flood Disaster where 34 people lost their lives.
Go there on a pleasant spring day, and you will find it hard to imagine such scenes. The vertiginous wonders of the Valley of Rocks and the famous funicular cliff railway make it one of the most visit-able places in the West Country.
The Giants of the North Devon Coast
Past the tallest cliffs in England we come to the two hangmen—the Great Hangman and the Little Hangman. These hills dominate the coast just east of Combe Martin, the longest village in England, once famous for fragrant strawberries and gleaming silver.
Travelling west, we pass Watermouth Bay, which turns into a kind of fjord. Once an isolated place beloved by free-traders, it’s said that in 1785, a tidesman found a 96-gallon barrel of rum here but was unable to make an arrest.
Finally, we reach Ilfracombe, capital of the west Exmoor coast. The dramatic, cliff-bordered arena around the harbour wouldn't look out of place on the Amalfi Coast. Our journey concludes at Bull Point, North Devon’s big corner, where the Bristol Channel finally gives up and heads south into the Atlantic maelstrom.
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