Weekend in Somerset 3

For my Five On Friday post this week I am once again joining with Amy from Love Made My Home and this week I am showing you more of our long weekend away that we spent in Somerset last week. In particular I thought I would show you some of the rich maritime history of the area that is still evident today.


First of all there were some new plaques on the harbour wall at Minehead that depict the town's rich seafaring history through the ages. 


The photos below show two of these plaques, the first shows a 1500's galleon, a full rigged vessel capable of long sea voyages. At the time Minehead was a major port trading on a par with Bristol and Bridgewater. Piracy and privateering were rife and many from Minehead found themselves in this lucrative trade.

The second photo shows a 1700's Tops'l Schooner - in 1703 a great storm wrecked many ships in harbours in the west of the country but Minehead with its sheltered harbour escaped. Local ships would pay a shilling to shelter here for a tide. Trade to and from Minehead had become global and a new harbour had to be built.

The pub and houses near the harbour also show signs of Minehead's seafaring heritage.

Along the coast in Watchet there is yet more evidence of this area's maritime history as Watchet was once an important and bustling port which is quite hard to believe now.


On the esplanade by the harbour is a wonderful statue of Yankee Jack, whose proper name was John Short. John was born in Watchet in 1839 and was one of Watchet's most famous sailors and shantymen.  It was a tradition aboard large sailing ships for the  crew to sing sea shanties and John had a strong and tuneful voice which often led to him taking a solo role. Over the years he memorised words and tunes of dozens of shanties, many of them being transcribed by Cecil Sharp, an eminent collector of folk songs and shanties. John died in 1933 at the age of 94.

Another statue on the esplanade depicts the Ancient Mariner from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' which was inspired by a visit that Coleridge made to Watchet in 1797. 

Coleridge is very much linked with Watchet, an extract from the poem was for many years displayed on one of the old wharf buildings at the harbour although this building is now no more.

Lastly I wanted to show you this mosaic which will form the centre of a new seaspray gallery in Watchet. This was organised by the Watchet Arts Group who invited children and adults to decorate a tile which were used to create the mosaic - a total of 1500 tiles make up the mosaic, many of which were created by pupils from Knights Templar First School at a special arts day.

Do go along and visit Amy's blog where you will find links to more Five On Friday posts.

Continuation of Somerset Adventure

As you will know if you read my last posting we have been staying in Somerset for a long weekend. This is a favourite destination for us and we have been to the area many times but each time we go back we see or go somewhere we haven't been before as well as visiting old haunts.


Once again we stayed at The Langbury, this is the very best B & B we have stayed in, just perfection in every way and the hosts Paula and Nigel have become great friends.

On our first full day we motored into Devon as we had promised my No. 1 son who was spending the weekend with us that we would take him to The Valley of Rocks that DH and I visited back in October. We drove to Lynmouth via the toll road from Porlock, wow, what a view you get from the toll booth on the top of the moor looking back east towards Porlock.

As we crossed the top of the moor we were lucky enough to spot a group of native Exmoor ponies, these can be difficult to spot and don't very often come so close to the road so we were extremely lucky to see them.

The view across the moor is spectacular.

We then parked up in Lynmouth and headed for the cliff lift to take us up to Lynton. 

The weather was dry and sunny when we left Lynmouth as can be seen in the two photos below ...

By the time we returned later in the day the weather had closed in - just look at the difference. We experienced all extremes of weather on this day from sun to snow and everything between!

However, we still had lots of bright sunny and breezy weather to come for our walk to the Valley of Rocks, my son and I decided to walk from Lynton along the narrow coast path, you might remember from my post of our last trip here in October that my DH wasn't at all keen on being so close to a vertical drop to the sea so he walked along the road and met up with us later. As you can see from the photos below the feral goats that reside in this unique place were much in evidence.

We found my DH sat on a seat in the sun in a sheltered spot waiting for us.

Luckily for us the weather remained dry for our walk back to Lynton where we enjoyed lunch.

I then made a visit to John Arbon Textiles to buy some sock wool and some socks for my No. 2 son (watchers of Country File might recall this company featured at the end of January). We came out of the shop to find the weather had suddenly turned and it was snowing so we made our way quickly back to the cliff lift by which time it had turned to sleet. By the time we reached Lynmouth it had turned to rain, and very icy rain at that, so we decided to cut short our day and make our way back across the moor on the high road.


By the time we had climbed out of the deep wooded valley to the top of the moor the weather had improved dramatically and we were lucky enough to see two herds of red deer as we crossed the moor - a real treat.

On Saturday I split company from DH and No. 1 son who were spending the day enjoying the steam gala on the West Somerset Railway. I decided to go walking instead (somehow I have to face the scales at Slimming World next week and with all the extra eating I really needed the exercise). I decided to catch the steam train down to Minehead and walk back to Blue Anchor along the coast path - a distance of 4.5 miles. I was a bit nervous about doing this as I don't usually walk on my own but I thoroughly enjoyed it and would definitely do it again. 


The first part of the walk takes you along the promenade at Minehead before turning onto the coast path and walking alongside the golf course.

After passing a couple of pill boxes at the end of the golf course you reach the Dunster beach chalets which stretch along Dunster beach for quite a way.

After a quick breather and a loo stop I walked onwards towards Blue Anchor.

Crossing this field I spot Blue Anchor in the distance so am now on the homeward stretch.

I timed my arrival back in Blue Anchor at just the right time to see a double-headed steam train pull out from Blue Anchor on its way towards Minehead. There were about fifty photographers stood in the field on the other side of the track taking photographs. 

By this time it was lunchtime and I enjoyed a lovely prawn sandwich and a welcome mug of coffee at the Driftwood cafe before relaxing and reading my book in the warm and snug lounge at The Langbury before walking down to the station to meet the menfolk on their return.

All too soon it was Sunday morning and time to pack up and leave The Langbury but before returning home we stopped off in Watchet, principally for the menfolk to take yet more steam train photographs, while I enjoyed wandering around the harbour.

There was a final treat in store on the way home as it was Mothering Sunday so my son treated us to lunch which rounded off a super weekend very nicely indeed.

Sorry, yet another long post, if you have stayed with me, thank you for reading. I will be back again soon.