The cottages are cob and thatch, and the chimneys are unusually tall, rising well above the low roofs. Bossington sits between Bossington Hill and the Bristol Channel, at the point where a short lane gives out and a track carries on to the beach. It is a peaceful coastal hamlet on the Holnicote Estate, a few miles west of Minehead, with a National Trust car park close by.
Opposite that car park is Kitnors, a thatched-cottage tea garden with more than fifty covers and an outdoor kitchen, set in a garden that fills up with walkers and cyclists. Teas, coffees, light lunches and afternoon teas are the offer here. It is Bossington's principal food stop, and after a morning on the coast path it is the obvious stop.
Walk up through the cottages and you pass the Methodist chapel, an Arts and Crafts building of red sandstone rubble with blue glazed-brick quoins, a clay-tile roof and a small bellcote. Historic England's listing calls it "a lively little building." Regular worship has stopped, but the Methodist circuit still hires the open-plan room for retreats, meetings and the occasional wedding.
The lane runs on to the shore, which is pebble rather than sand, with tidal pools and a view across the water to Wales. A large square limekiln stands at the beach edge, mid-to-late nineteenth century, its two drawholes feeding a central pot now filled in. Concrete defences from the Second World War survive along the same stretch; up on Bossington Hill a grass-covered mound marks a wartime observation post, part of a tank-training range that once had its own target railway.
In 1996 a storm breached the shingle ridge that had kept the sea off Porlock Marsh. Rather than rebuild it, the National Trust let the water in. Saltmarsh formed where freshwater marsh had been, and little egrets, lapwing and oystercatchers moved in; curlews and shelducks work the mud, and porpoises are sometimes seen off Hurlstone Point. The Porlock Marsh Explorer, a flat circuit of three and a half miles, takes in the boardwalk and can be joined from the village. Do not try to walk the shingle ridge itself between here and Porlock: there is no safe route across it, and the inland diversion exists for a reason. Some of the paths are tidal.
For a pub you go to Porlock, about a mile and a half on foot. The Ship Inn, known locally as the Top Ship, is a thirteenth-century inn with log burners, a large outdoor area and a children's play space, run by Royston and Caroline Connor. The kitchen does crispy whitebait with tartare sauce, a farmhouse Scotch egg with piccalilli, beer-battered haddock, five-bean chilli with coconut yoghurt and a Top Ship smash burger, alongside West Country ales and local cider. It was CAMRA's Somerset Pub of the Year in 2025.
Getting here is mostly a matter of driving: the A39 from Minehead towards Porlock, then local lanes. Taunton is the nearest station, some thirty-five miles off, and a taxi or a car is the honest answer for the last leg. The number 10 minibus runs six days a week between Minehead, Allerford, Porlock and Porlock Weir; Allerford, ten minutes' walk away along quiet lanes, is the closest it comes.
The Domesday survey recorded eight households at Bossington, and valued one of its holdings at a pound a year. Down at Allerford's packhorse bridge, the post office still sells scones.