Withypool

The New Bridge and the Barle valley

The six-arch stone bridge over the River Barle is still marked "New Bridge" on Ordnance Survey maps, though it went up in the 19th century and was restored in 1866 and again in 1983. It replaced a crossing about a hundred metres upstream. Beside it are a small car park and a picnic area, and the National Park lists this stretch between the parking and the river as an important visitor amenity.

The village follows the north-side contours above the water, a line of stone and rendered houses with slate roofs, a mile west of the B3223 in the wooded, steep-sided Barle valley. Behind them the enclosed farmland climbs towards open Withypool Common, part of the Exmoor Heaths conservation area; the Barle itself is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is a remote place, and it feels it.

Village essentials and the Royal Oak

The centre holds the village shop, and it does a great deal. Withypool Village Shop and Tea Room is also the Post Office, the tearoom and the Exmoor National Park information point, with maps, guides and details of local tours and safaris. The shelves carry Exmoor Ales, Wicked Wolf Gin, Exmoor Distillery spirits, Exmoor Tea, Coast to Moor Coffee, Brendon Hill Craft preserves and Exmoor Fudge Kitchen sweets; meat comes from John May, and a fish supply visits once a week.

The Royal Oak Inn describes itself as an 18th-century inn with more than three hundred years behind it. Inside are two beamed bars with wood burners and a separate dining room; outside, covered and uncovered seating and an outdoor bar. Both bars carry local beer and welcome dogs, with water bowls, treats and a canine menu of their own. The kitchen sources its meat and fish locally and runs Sunday lunch, breakfast, pizza, vegan and children's menus. Cyclists get bike storage and a wash-down area.

Writers, painters and St Andrew's

The inn keeps its history close. R. D. Blackmore is said to have written part of Lorna Doone in the bar in 1866. Dwight Eisenhower stayed and sent a thank-you letter in November 1944. And Sir Alfred Munnings, who moved to Withypool during the war after his Essex house was requisitioned, set up a studio here and painted the surrounding country; he became President of the Royal Academy in 1944. Of the Exmoor ponies he wrote, "Theirs is a life of freedom, mine is not."

St Andrew's, the parish church, is a late-medieval building much rebuilt, the tower raised again in the early 17th century and once more in 1902. It keeps a Norman font with a fluted bowl and a chevron rim, an early carved stone bearing part of a cross set into a tower buttress, and a slate memorial to Dorothy Adams, who died in 1804.

Walking towards Landacre and Tarr Steps

The walking is why most people come. From the bridge a riverside path heads north towards Landacre and Simonsbath, past Landacre Bridge, a five-arched medieval crossing on the common documented by 1610. The other direction leads to Tarr Steps, Britain's longest clapper bridge, seventeen stone spans across the Barle, on a nine-mile circuit that climbs Withypool Hill for the long views before dropping back to the water on the Two Moors Way. The Hinds Pitt footbridge is closed at present, so the Park routes walkers over the newer Great Bradley Bridge, opened in 2024 in repurposed steel and locally grown oak.

Getting to remote Withypool

There is no railway on Exmoor; Taunton and Tiverton Parkway are the nearest stations. The current Exmoor National Park route summary lists no bus through the village, so check Traveline for the final leg, and the lanes in between may hold you up behind livestock. Bring what you need. The shop stocks a useful range of the rest, and on a still evening the loudest thing in Withypool is the river under the bridge.