Martinhoe

Church and Valley

The Church of St Martin stands on exposed high ground, reached by single-track lanes that leave the A39 and narrow as they climb. Its chancel dates from around 1300, and inside there is a trefoil-headed piscina from the 13th century, a polychrome-marble font carved in 1864 by Pulsford of Barnstaple, a 15th-century rood screen, and wall monuments cut with skulls and hourglasses. S. S. Teulon restored and enlarged the building in 1866-67. The earlier font, probably Saxon, was moved to St Petrock's at Parracombe.

The hamlet itself is small, a village hall and a scatter of houses. Most of what you come for is in the wooded valley beneath it, down at Heddon's Mouth, where the River Heddon runs through ancient woodland to a pebble beach between high cliffs.

The Inn and Pantry

The Hunters Inn is there, a half-timbered country inn run since 2025 by Mark, Debs and the Walton family as National Trust tenants. It began in 1823 as a thatched estate cottage, where the Berry family supplied ale to shooting parties; it burnt down in 1895, and local legend holds that only a beer barrel was saved. Colonel Benjamin Greene Lake rebuilt it in Arts and Crafts style, finished in 1906. The kitchen works with locally landed fish, Exmoor beef and seasonal vegetables, and does Sunday roasts. Dogs are welcome inside as well as in the beer garden, with water bowls and a few dog-friendly rooms, and the ales are small-batch and local, changing often.

By the car park, a former stable holds The Pantry, a National Trust takeaway café doing traybakes, barista coffee and hot chocolate. In warmer months it sells Styles ice cream, made locally with Jersey milk and West Country cream, and there is a version for dogs too.

Valley Walks and Roman Footings

The walking is the reason to base yourself here. The Heddon's Mouth circular is two miles through the woods beside the river, past a restored 19th-century lime kiln on the beach, returning along a carriageway Colonel Lake built in the late 1880s; brown trout live in the water and the valley is managed for the rare high brown fritillary. The coast walk is harder, three and a half miles with 550 feet of climbing, a scree crossing and steep drops that rule it out for young children or anyone uneasy with heights. It reaches some of the highest sea cliffs in England, with views towards Great and Little Hangman, Combe Martin, Lundy and across to Wales. For children there is a wild play area built from trees, along with toilets and picnic tables, and two of the routes are suitable for all-terrain Tramper mobility scooters, though the going is rough in places.

Above the hamlet, 850 metres north-west on a north-facing clifftop, lie the footings of a Roman signal station, excavated in the 1960s, where first-century finds came out of the ground.

Rail and Road Connections

The nearest station is Barnstaple, on the Tarka Line to Exeter, about sixteen miles from Heddon Valley; the Stagecoach 309 and 310 buses stop at Martinhoe Cross rather than the hamlet itself. Lynton and Lynmouth, with their water-powered cliff railway, are four miles east. At Woody Bay the revived Lynton & Barnstaple Railway runs a short steam trip up to Killington Lane and back, about twenty minutes in all.

Harry's Orchard

Just past the stone bridge in the valley is Harry's Orchard, planted in memory of Harry Westcott, who worked for the National Trust here.