25th January 2016
Day 2 Porlock to Lynton
The walk to Lynton was only a little longer at about 14 miles but don’t forget these are hilly miles. Just outside Porlock you walk through the romantic creations of Lord Lovelace. Strange castilated towers and arches were constructed to emulate the gardens he had seen in Italy. These woods were frequented by Coleridge and are referenced in The Rime to the Ancient Mariner, the greatest sea poem ever written. Coleridge not only invented the “Zombie” but also invented the sport of mountaineering. I believe he was the first person to write about climbing for pleasure rather than work. It was the beginning of the “Sublime” era. Soon we came to Culbourne Church, the smallest church in Britain which is only 35 foot deep and 12 foot 4 inches wide. Somehow churches wouldn’t sound right in metric.
After visiting the church (which some people sadly don’t take the trouble to do) the path continues through wooded cliffs which are home to very rare whitebeam trees some species of which are only found along this coast. Eventually Lynmouth comes into view. In 1952 Lynmouth suffered a catastrophic flood when a storm on Exmoor caused an already saturated heath to swell the river sending huge boulders and tree trunks down to destroy the town. 34 people died and hundreds were left homeless. The town has been rebuilt to match the old attractive buildings. Lynton lies a couple of hundred metres above Lynton. There is a cliff railway but it doesn’t operate in January so we tackled the steep zig zag path to the very top. It is a hard climb at the end of a long walk. We asked where the Village Inn was and the man apologised and said it was in Lynmouth at the bottom of the hill! So off we went back down again. The Village Inn is a very friendly pub which serves really excellent evening food and a good breakfast (and a good pint).
Number of walkers seen on the path – 0
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