Winsford

Bridges and the Royal Oak

The Winn Brook runs across a ford in the middle of Winsford, and if you would rather keep your feet dry you cross beside it on a stone bridge. There are eight bridges in all, near the ford and the village green. The smallest, the Winsford Smithy Bridge, is a single red sandstone arch that still keeps its cobbled surface, one of the crossings that served Exmoor's medieval wool trade. A short way off, a two-arch packhorse bridge crosses the Exe on the old Dulverton–Porlock track. It was repaired after a flood in 1628 and stayed the main crossing until a road bridge went in downstream in the early nineteenth century.

The Royal Oak is a country inn in the centre of Winsford, with ten en-suite rooms. It calls itself the oldest Royal Oak in the area; the local accounts of its exact age do not agree, so it is best left as old. The kitchen makes its own bread, sauces, desserts and ice creams, and cooks seasonally. The pies are the thing to know about: steak and Exmoor Ale, chicken and tarragon, chicken curry, a fish pie of pollock, cod and prawns, shepherd's pie, and a vegetable pie of butternut squash, spinach, goat's cheese, walnuts and leeks. From Easter to September it doubles as a tearoom, with cakes, sandwiches and sausage rolls. Well-behaved dogs are welcome through most of it.

The Oak Shop and Walking Routes

The village shop now lives inside the Royal Oak too. It sells local produce, bakery bread, ham, bacon and gala pie, eggs, cheeses, preserves and Exmoor honey, and it serves as a collection point for repeat prescriptions. The old shop on Edbrooke Road closed in 2014 when its owners retired.

Most people come for the walking. Exmoor National Park's classic Winsford and the Punchbowl circuit runs about seven miles and takes three to four hours, climbing from the streets to the Punchbowl, a deep hollow in the flank of Winsford Hill. If that is too much, Larcombe Foot is a gentle 2.6 miles, and the Summerway circuit takes in Halse Lane, Yellowcombe and Edbrooke Hill. A longer route heads for Tarr Steps, three and a half miles away, where a seventeen-span clapper bridge crosses the River Barle and the Tarr Farm Inn looks down on it.

Ancient Markers on Winsford Hill

Winsford Hill is worth the climb on its own. Near the top stands the Caratacus Stone, Somerset's only known inscribed early-Christian memorial, its worn Latin read as "kinsman of Caratacus," the first-century British rebel. Nearby, the Wambarrows are five Bronze Age round barrows, and the hill's free-roaming Anchor herd of Exmoor ponies grazes across it.

Church and Domesday

Back down, the Church of St Mary Magdalene is Grade I listed and older than it first looks: a Norman font with twisted-column arcading, thirteenth-century ironwork on the door, fourteenth-century glass of the Virgin, a Jacobean pulpit, and a painted Royal Arms of James I dated 1609, said to be one of only four to survive. Thomas Bilbie cast the four heaviest of its six bells in 1765. The Domesday surveyors recorded eighty-four households here, a mill worth five pence and fifty-two sheep, and valued the whole place at £11 10s.

Travel and Village Recreation

There is no mainline railway on Exmoor; you drive in, watching for livestock on the lanes, or take the 198 bus from the Exford Road shelter towards Dulverton, Dunster and Minehead. Dulverton, eight miles off, has the wider choice of food. But the village keeps tennis courts beside the cricket ground, and you can play for a small donation left in a box.