Withypool 5th March 2016

You’d think with the Met Office being less than 40 miles away they’d be able to get the weather right? And yet those perpetual peddlers of meteorological fabrication got it wrong again this Saturday. At least it didn’t rain, much. It was not however the beaming sunshine promised. It was bitingly cold in the wind and thick grey cloud prevailed most of the day. There were a few snatches of sunshine, which allowed us take a few nice photos but also makes it look like I’m lying about the inclement whether. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

The Route. The dotted line depicts the non-footpathed section. We went anti-clockwise.

Today’s route started out from Landacre Bridge just to the west of Withypool. This is a great place to park as you can set off for several different walks here and it's free! There is a car park in Withypool but it fills up very quickly. Get there early to avoid disappointment. 

The initial slog uphill. It was much worse than it looks in the photo. Honest.

The walk encompassed most of the moorland to the south west of Withypool and was about half moorland, half country lanes. The ground is still very wet but the moor tends to soak it up very well as there’s about 3 feet of roots under the grass. Even the muddy bits aren’t really sticky. The initial view from leaving the car was quite stunning, a large gorge cutting through the landscape. Starting next to water almost always involves setting out uphill. The initial going was quite tough with a strong wind and difficult terrain underfoot. We could have just walked up the road but where's the fun in that?

Looking for the footpath.

Part of the route I had chosen was not a designated footpath but as the moor is common land you are free to roam. If you are going to do this, you need to have a backup plan in case the land isn’t quite as accessible as you thought. I did a quick Google Maps recce and saw there was an obvious track across where we needed to go. If we couldn’t get through there was an option of walking around along a road. This would have added about a mile and meant Chuck would have to go on the lead as it’s a fairly busy road. As it was, we managed to get through quite easily. I also had this part near the beginning of the walk so if it was impassable we wouldn’t have to do the full walk in reverse to get around. This has happened to me before.

Not much to aid navigation around here.

The moor can be quite a difficult place to navigate with no obvious features and many more paths than are detailed on the map. One such navigational challenge appeared fairly early on. With the aid of a fairly obvious hedge line, a re-entrant and a prominent curve in the road that we had to cross we found the track we were looking for. Using tick off features in this way is a helpful aid to navigation. It’s also advisable to know how to use a compass as this can help with path selection if there are more tracks than you were expecting. A more detailed post on this particular piece of navigation will follow in the coming weeks.

Tudball's Splats. Answers on a postcard (or a comment below) please.

Next along the walk was the fantastically named Tudball’s Splats. I have no idea who Tudball was or what his Splat was for and a Google search yields no answers. It appears to be an old field system. It is two square fields with a plantation of trees growing around the outside. It looked very damp inside so we didn’t explore it. Plus, it was nearly lunch time and it was in far too an exposed area to eat. A quick walk up the hill we passed Porchester post which historically marks the boundary between Hawkridge and Withypool parishes, in case you were wondering. This led to a beautiful tree lined avenue where we lunched. Down here I saw something I'd never seen before, a horse on a bridleway. I've seen plenty on the B3223 though.

Nice pink fork.

The remainder of the walk to Withypool was on the road. Most of it quite quiet. There is a great view of West Anstey Common to the south and a pretty stone bridge across Dane’s Brook. Chuck couldn’t resist a quick paddle. Along the road we met two farm dogs who came out and said hello to Chuck. They were fairly adventurous and followed us quite a long way before they realised they better head for home.

The bridge across Dane's Brook.

Withypool is at the bottom of a long hill, so it can be seen from up on high during the descent. It’s a wonderful little village which is surprisingly well facilitated. There is a well-stocked shop with a post office, a tea rooms and a pub. Having nothing to post, we chose the latter. The Old Oak Inn is a great old fashioned pub and a full review will be available soon. A large group was in there and they brought all their dogs in to meet Chuck. Thankfully Chuck was quite calm as he was pooped, otherwise it could have been a crazy puppy party as these dogs seemed very excitable.

Withypool petrol station. Closed.

The final leg was up hill out the North of Withypool back onto the moor. This is where we got the aforementioned rain that wasn’t meant to happen. Still, it didn’t last long. The road here gradually turns into a track which turns into a footpath. It’s like walking further into nature with each step. I loved it.

Landacre bridge.

The last stretch was downhill back to the car over Landacre bridge. It’s a lovely little spot (I have a limited number of adjectives I can come up with so excuse excessive use of ‘lovely’. It’s a good descriptor for Exmoor. I'll invest in a thesaurus) where we could wash Chuck before putting him back in the car. It’s the age old lesser of two evils, wet dog or muddy dog in the car? As Chuck has a towel in the car we chose wet dog. This was a challenging walk, for the first half especially. It’s a another great walk if it’s been raining recently and you don’t want to be knee deep in mud. It was about eleven miles and it took about five hours with pub stop. Withypool is also where a lot of people start when going to the Tarr Steps, another Exmoor beauty spot. As this is in the opposite direction it’s ideal for the more misanthropic among you. Have you ever been to Withypool? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Until next time.