Church, coast and temperate rainforest
Culbone
Reach Culbone on foot through sessile-oak woodland, then find a tiny historic church in a deep wooded combe.
- Best for
- Woodland walking and church history
- Give it
- Four to five hours for the 10-mile circuit
- Don't miss
- St Beuno's Norman font and circa-1400 screen
The Fox verdict
A roadless church hidden in coastal oakwood
Culbone rewards the walk in with a remarkably small church, Atlantic oakwood and traces of centuries of coastal history.
The visit is defined by the approach: the South West Coast Path runs through Culbone Wood to St Beuno's Church, while the longer official circuit also passes Ashley Combe before continuing through woodland and moorland. Porlock Weir provides the practical base for parking, food and drink.
Where to go
Places in Culbone
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesCulbone Churchyard Cross
A separately Grade II* 15th-century calvary of red sandstone and Ham stone, restored in 1966 with an octagonal shaft and cross.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 15 minutes
- Locality
- Culbone churchyard
The Ship Inn
A traditional coastal pub, restaurant and B&B with roots going back more than 200 years, log fires, harbour views and West Country suppliers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Porlock Weir
Exmoor Adventures
Family archery, kayaking, mountain biking, paddleboarding, tree climbing and rock climbing are offered with different minimum ages.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Porlock Weir
- Access
- Booking and current suitability should be checked directly.
Food & drink
1 placeHarbour Gallery and Cafe
A harbour-side gallery and cafe with indoor seating, tables by the harbour wall, homemade baking and thick smoked chowder with crusty bread.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Porlock Weir
Walks & outdoors
2 placesCulbone Wood
Mainly sessile-oak woodland where moist coastal air supports ferns, mosses and lichens characteristic of Atlantic oakwood or temperate rainforest.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Exmoor's steep north coast
- Access
- Landslips sometimes force diversions; obey current signs.
Porlock Weir
The practical access hub for Culbone, with a harbour, pebble beach, parking, pub, cafes and local oysters.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Porlock Weir
History & heritage
2 placesSt Beuno's Church
A Grade I church seating about 40, with a Norman baluster font, a circa-1400 screen and a 1927 reredos designed by C. F. A. Voysey.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- deep, secluded wooded combe
- Access
- Culbone Church requires an approach on foot.
Ashley Combe Remains
Rubble, arches and tunnels survive from the house developed in the 1830s by William King and Ada Lovelace as an Italian villa with steep terraces.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- woods towards Culbone Church
No places match this filter. Choose All places to reset the list.
Three ways to explore Culbone
Signature outings
Find St Beuno's
Approach on foot to see a church of about 40 seats, a Norman font and a circa-1400 screen.
Read the working woodland
Look for old multi-stemmed coppice stools and the level platforms once used for charcoal burning.
Use the harbour as your base
Porlock Weir combines the harbour and pebble beach with Culbone's practical parking, food and drink stop.
The village story
Culbone Village Guide
A journey on foot through coastal oakwood to a tiny church, with lost villas, charcoal platforms and Porlock Weir along the way.
A Church at the End of the Path
There is no road to Culbone. You arrive on foot, along the South West Coast Path through a deep wooded combe, to a church small enough to seat about forty people. St Beuno's has a good claim to be the smallest complete church in England, and it does not strain for the title.
The nave and chancel are built of random rubble. A slender spirelet was added around 1810; the porch is thirteenth-century. Inside there is a Norman baluster font, a three-bay screen from around 1400, a seventeenth-century box pew, and bench ends that may predate the Reformation. One of the bells is said to be fourteenth-century. In a two-light window on the north wall, someone carved a leopard's face in low relief. The reredos behind the altar was designed in 1927 by C. F. A. Voysey and made by a Mr Huish.
Saints, Stone and Porlock Weir
The church is commonly named for Beuno, a sixth-century Welsh saint, though the official record lists the dedication as unknown. It is normally open daily, though it is worth checking before making the journey. In the churchyard stands a fifteenth-century calvary of red sandstone and Ham stone, restored in 1966.
Culbone itself has no pub, shop or other visitor facility. The nearest place for food, drink and parking is Porlock Weir, at the other end of the coast path. The Ship Inn there, known locally as the Bottom Ship, has a stone-floored bar and a fire in winter; the menu runs to a Scotch egg with fennel ketchup, smoked haddock chowder, beer-battered cod and chips, hake with a chorizo-and-butterbean stew, and a Little Oak Farm gammon chop, with Otter Amber and a weekly-changing Exmoor Ale on the bar. Porlock Bay oysters have been grown in the bay since 2013. The Harbour Gallery and Cafe does homemade baking and a thick smoked chowder with crusty bread.
The Living Wood and Lost Villa
The wood you walk through to get here is worth slowing down for. Culbone Wood is mostly sessile oak, damp enough to count as temperate rainforest, its branches carrying ferns, mosses and lichens. It was coppiced for centuries to make charcoal, and you can still pick out the old multi-stemmed stools and the level platforms where the charcoal was burned. The wood forms part of one of the longest unbroken stretches of coastal woodland in England, running between Porlock and Countisbury, and from higher ground the view opens across the Bristol Channel to south Wales. Culbone Hill reaches 433 metres, on what is billed as the highest coastline in England and Wales.
Near the church, Ash Farm is traditionally held to be the house where Coleridge was writing Kubla Khan when he was interrupted by "a person on business from Porlock," though whether it was this exact farm is not certain. The path from Porlock Weir also passes the remains of Ashley Combe, a house first built for Peter King around 1799 and turned in the 1830s by his son William and William's wife, the mathematician Ada Lovelace, into an Italian villa with terraced gardens and tunnels. It was demolished in 1974; arches and tunnels survive among the trees.
The Long Circuit and Culbone's Deep Past
The full circuit from Porlock Weir through Culbone and Hawkcombe is ten miles and takes four to five hours, looping past Ashley Combe and the church before climbing through woodland and moor to Porlock. No mainline railway reaches Exmoor; Taunton is the practical gateway, and the A39 brings you to Porlock and the Weir. In summer the seasonal 300 bus runs between Minehead, Porlock, Culbone and Lynmouth, though its Culbone stop is up on the road, not down in the combe with the church.
In 1086 the Domesday surveyors found four households here — two villagers, one smallholder and one enslaved person — with a hundred acres of woodland, and valued the whole place at fifteen shillings. You walk down through the oaks, and if the church is open, let yourself in.
Stay around Exmoor
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Exmoor, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- St Beuno's Church — nationalchurchestrust.org national body or asset manager
- Culbone Churchyard Cross — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Culbone Wood — exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Ashley Combe Remains — exmoorher.co.uk other published source
- Porlock Weir — porlockweir.co operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Ship Inn — theshipinnporlockweir.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Harbour Gallery and Cafe — porlockweir.co other published source
- Exmoor Adventures — exmooradventures.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation