On this walk you’ll enjoy amazing, far-reaching views of Exmoor from the top of Bossington Hill, including Dunkery Beacon, and even Wales across the water. Finished off with a tearoom and an amble through some woods – beautiful!

Why it’s on my list

Technically this walk is in Somerset, but it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from North Devon. It’s nestled in Exmoor National Park, which extends across both North Devon and Somerset.

Technicalities out of the way – we had been to Selworthy over 10 years ago and had enjoyed a lovely cream tea in a thatched cottage tea room. We fancied paying it another visit and wanted to make a day of it, so my husband came up with a walking route that had a trip to Selworthy at the end. We didn’t have much of an idea of what this walk would be like, so it was a bit of a mystery – *spoiler* it was brilliant!

Walk Information

Location: Start at the National Trust car park at Bossington, just past Porlock.

Parking: National Trust car park at Bossington, free for National Trust members or £2 for two hours, £5 all day.

Length of walk: just over 6 miles – it took us around 3 hours 15 minutes (but that did include a stop at the tearoom in Selworthy).

Type of walk: Circular walk. As you might imagine from the title of this blog, there is quite an incline for this one. There was a steep uphill towards the beginning and we took that same part down again.

Dog friendly? Yes. We did see some cows and Exmoor ponies, so you will want to bear that in mind.

Overall verdict

This was a breathtakingly beautiful walk with some stupendous views across Exmoor, some of the best I’ve seen. I was very glad I wore my glasses and could see it all properly. The tearoom at Selworthy was adorable and a delightful pitstop. All in all, this one’s definitely a keeper, as long as you don’t mind a bit of a slog uphill and downhill.

The route

Starting from the car park, head along the path at the back next to the information board and cross the bridge over the little river. From here, we took a slight right/straight ahead where there was a yellow footpath marker showing the way to West Lynch. I understand you can take a left here instead and go along a scenic, coastal path to Hurlstone Point and then up to the top of Bossington Hill, but for us that would have to be a different day as we didn’t have the time.

We carried on along this path, taking some steps up to a gate that leads you into a field. From here you start walking uphill until you’re about halfway up, turning right and going through a gap in the field boundary where there is a little yellow waymarker. Then it’s a walk across the field, maintaining the same height, until you get to a little gate. After going through the gate, you’ll see your first sign for Selworthy Beacon. Follow this into the woodland.

You’ll soon gather that this is the start of the big climb for this walk. You’ll come across a sign at a crossroads and the direction of course is to take the bridleway to Selworthy Beacon, continuing uphill through the woodland. Good news, it’s only a mile and a half!

We plodded slowly up the hill, which was through woodland and had a lovely carpet of autumn leaves. Eventually the woodland became less thick and we started to see more open air. We reached a blue bridleway signpost, which told us to turn left, and a bench, which was a very welcome sight! Whilst we had a drink of water, we could see the start of some wonderful views of the sea above the trees.

The route from here carries on round the hill and upwards, but the hard incline is done – now it is much more gradual. We carried on following the bridleway and as we did the views really started to open out – stunning.

We kept following the path along, always heading slightly upwards, and came across some pretty cows and Exmoor ponies.

Not too long after this we reached Selworthy Beacon where there is a trig point. From atop the stony pile of rocks you can see all around and enjoy more views of Exmoor’s coastline and hills. Congratulations, you’ve reached the highest bit!

From here we continued along the path, which eventually reached a road. You continue along the road for a little bit, before a bridleway sign takes you off to the right.

It was a short but fairly steep walk down the hill before we got to this junction, where we could have gone left uphill or right into woodland. We took the right-hand path, which was the right call as it got us to where we wanted to go without any more uphills.

We followed this path through woodland, eventually coming to a gate that told us we had arrived at the village of Selworthy.

We enjoyed coffee and cake from the tearoom, had a look around the lovely little church, and then made our way out through a path just off the green outside the tearoom. We took the first gate on the left.

We followed the paths along, which felt like they were skirting around the base of the hill. In general we followed signs towards Allerford and then Bossington, and each time there was a divide in the path we took the right-hand path to maintain our height.

We passed this little shelter en route. You can see here the path was nice and wide, and although it was woodland we had some pretty sunlight streaming through the trees.

We did start to gain a little height and we eventually realised that we were heading back to the bench we came across at the top of the steep climb. We took a little shortcut here once we could see the path we came up on and then followed that back down the hill. We went through the woodland, back through the field and over the bridge, and we were back to the car park.

The best

The views on top of Bossington Hill were just incredible and hands down my favourite part of the walk. You can see Porlock and the surrounding fields, Dunkery Beacon in the distance, and the magnificent coastline. Even a bit of Wales on a clear day (which we thankfully had, but that sort of thing never photographs well!)

The views are sort of behind you on this route, so make sure you turn around lots. You don’t want to get too high before looking around as it levels out on the approach to Selworthy Beacon and then you don’t get the steep drop away that makes the views so special.

Not the best

When we were heading back through the woodland, we decided to keep our height, taking every right-hand path where there were options. This meant that eventually we rejoined the path we took up Bossington Hill, and had to take what had been the steepest bit up all the way back down again. I think if we had taken a couple more left-hand paths we may have had a bit more variety and not had to contend with the steepness again. But it was still beautiful and we enjoyed it.

Top tip

You can make this walk longer by combining this with the Porlock, Porlock Weir and Bossington walk. That’s what we did and it was a wonderful full day out. I’d recommend doing the other walk and then this one so that you’ve got the Selworthy Tearoom near the end (you’ve got to have a good carrot on a stick).