The Staghunters Inn stands on the bank of the East Lyn, a family-run country inn with rooms, a bar kept separate from the restaurant, and a real fire, its garden running down to the water. The evening menu is unfussy: homemade cottage pie under Cheddar-topped mash, fisherman's pie, a locally made prime-beef burger, West Country ham with eggs and chips, chicken curry, chilli con carne, scampi, and vegan options that run to a vegetable curry, a chilli and a bolognese. Exmoor Ale, a 3.8% session bitter, is the regular cask beer, and there is usually at least one real cider, sometimes two in summer. Dogs and children are welcome.
The name is old. The 1841 tithe map already recorded the property as "Staghunters Inn: Houses and Garden," owned by William Bromham and occupied by Nathaniel Bromham, and it has carried the name for at least 180 years. The Brendon Sing, a monthly folk-song gathering that began up the valley at the Rockford Inn, had already been meeting at the Staghunters for more than 25 years by 2015.
Brendon itself is a single line of buildings strung along the deep East Lyn valley, reached from the A39 or the B3223 by minor roads. At Leeford, two stone bridges cross the river about thirty metres apart. The road bridge is probably 18th-century, its northern approach eased and its parapet raised in the 1800s; beside it the humped, cobbled packhorse bridge is older still, once the link between Brendon Mill and the north bank. The Coleridge Way is picked up across Leeford Bridge, and Rockford is reachable on foot over a footbridge.
The walking is why many people come. The Doone Valley circuit crosses a two-arched 17th-century bridge at Malmsmead, climbs through the sessile oaks of Southern Wood to Malmsmead Hill, passes the scant remains called Lorna's Cott and a deserted medieval settlement, and follows Badgworthy Water to R. D. Blackmore's memorial and Oare Church, where Blackmore's grandfather was rector and which he made the setting for Lorna Doone's wedding. A longer Exmoor classic links Countisbury and Brendon along the East Lyn towards Lynmouth and returns to County Gate on the coast path; the National Park sums it up as "Deep wooded combes and tumbling water."
The Church of St Brendan stands isolated, high to the west of the village. Its nave, chancel and south porch date from 1738, the tower was rebuilt in 1828, and an 1873 restoration added the north aisle, transept and vestry; the church replaced a 12th-century foundation at Cheriton, abandoned when worship moved down the valley. Inside are a 12th-century scalloped font, a slate datestone of 1707 reset above the porch, a painted royal coat of arms, and a stone pulpit of 1873. The reredos, altar rails and choir stalls were the work of a Brendon carpenter, John Floyd; the wooden lectern was carved by Joseph Totterdell, also of Brendon.
The Domesday surveyors valued Brendon at £5 a year to its lord, up from thirty shillings when Ralph of Pomeroy took it after the Conquest. The entry, shared with neighbouring Lank Combe, counted eight villagers, six smallholders and five enslaved people, along with a cob, 25 cattle, 8 pigs, 100 sheep, 30 goats, and 104 animals simply listed as "other."
Brendon Manor Stables, run by Charlotte Wilson and Phil Lacey off the B3223, offers guided treks across Exmoor, from lead-rein rides to one-to-one instruction. Brendon has no bus stop of its own, and the nearest station is Barnstaple, about twenty miles away on the Tarka Line to Exeter.
Downstream lies Watersmeet, where the East Lyn joins Hoar Oak Water among ancient oaks, and where a lodge built in 1832 has served cream teas since 1900. When the walking is done and the light comes off the water, the Staghunters garden is a good place to end it.