Badgworthy Water runs under a hump-backed packhorse bridge here, and beside it there is a ford. The bridge is coursed rubble stone with two round arches and triangular cutwaters. The stream beneath it is the county boundary, so you cross between Somerset and Devon without a sign to tell you. Lorna Doone Farm stands on the bank, and that, more or less, is Malmsmead: a bridge, a ford, a farm and the valley opening out behind them.
The farm buildings hold The Buttery, a café with a log fire indoors and a garden that runs down to the river. Ella Lancaster cooks the breakfasts, the pasties, the sandwiches and the homemade cakes, and the Devon cream teas come with Devon jam and clotted cream. The coffee is bean-to-cup. The garden has picnic tables, a children's adventure area and direct access to the water for paddling, and both dogs and children are welcome. Next to it a gallery sells work by local artists along with gifts and homeware, and there is a second-hand bookshop by the car park.
There is no pub in the hamlet. The nearest is the Staghunters Inn at Brendon, a family-run valley inn whose beer garden sits on the bank of the East Lyn; the kitchen has served cheddar-topped cottage pie, fisherman's pie, homemade chicken curry and West Country ham with fried eggs and chips.
Many attractions are reached on foot. The gentlest is a two-mile riverside path along Badgworthy Water to R. D. Blackmore's memorial, at the edge of ancient woodland: mostly well surfaced, about forty minutes, dogs on leads. A three-mile circular crosses two small fords and climbs through woodland to the church at Oare. Longer routes carry on to the deserted medieval village out on Brendon Common, up to County Gate for views over the Bristol Channel, or ten miles east to Foreland Point by way of Brendon and Watersmeet. The valley holds red deer and Exmoor ponies, and the higher slopes turn to heather and gorse.
The three-mile loop visits the historic church of St Mary's at Oare. Its nave and inner chancel are fifteenth-century; the west tower was rebuilt in the mid-1800s. Inside are a Norman circular font, eighteenth-century box pews, and a piscina carved as a man's head clasped between two hands. This is where Jan Ridd is married in Lorna Doone, the novel that made the valley famous, and Blackmore's own grandfather was rector here from 1809 to 1842.
The old village hall at Malmsmead opened in 1930 with a gymkhana, a fête and an evening dance. During the war, American soldiers from a nearby camp came to the dance nights. It later became a natural history field centre and closed in 2008.
There is no railway on Exmoor; the nearest station is Tiverton Parkway, and the roads in are narrow, running off the A39 about five miles from Lynmouth. From late May to the end of August the 300 bus crosses between Minehead and Ilfracombe and stops at County Gate, three-quarters of a mile away by footpath.
The ford is shallow, and by early evening the crowds are gone and the valley falls quiet.