Picturesque Harbour, Tiny Church, Leper Colony
and "Kubla Khan" Inspiration.

by Rachel L Webb

Porlock Weir is a quintessentially British quaint chocolate box picture. It’s a tiny medieval harbour with three shops, a 16-century coaching inn, thatched cottages and a well-renowned hotel.

It might  be small, but the atmosphere’s hugely wild and romantic. My imagination is fuelled by the tide crashing in onto the shingle beach- or is it the pretty heady local scrumpy cider from the thatched Ship Inn?  Visions of smugglers and damsels in distress, shipwrecks and their booty are part of its ragged tale of history, along with Daphne du Maurier’s vivid imagination I dream along.

Porlock Weir is situated on  the very edge of the Exmoor National Park, near the Somerset-Devon border, and this minute harbour, in its heyday, saw tons of oak logs leaving its shores. A winding toll road struggles for 4.5 miles from sea-level to the rolling heather covered moros at Pitt Coombe Head, home to 1,000  or more wild Red Deer and grazing Exmoor ponies.

The Church

From the harbour climb the steep winding path among a covering of age-old trees, that leads to Culbone, England’s smallest complete parish church. St. Beuno’s (pronounced by-nose) is a typical English church, but its no more than 12 metres long. With its grassy churchyard, surrounded by an obligatory yew tree hedge its as though it was made for pixies.

Though its beginnings are rather vague, the original site, is said to have been continually occupied by monks since  430 A.D, and  the first church on the site was built around 635.

Only accessible on foot, the church is still beautifully intact with its ancient oak pews in the interior and oak roof beams.  The original thatched roof was replaced by a slate one  around 1768, at the same time as  the priest cell was dismantled.

Leper Colony

The church authorities decided to use Culbone as a site for lepers In 1544 and around 45 men, women and children were banished to this beautiful yet isolated spot.. They were given no help at all while they were there but they were given seed to take with them yet  no tools to use!

The leper colony learned to forage, cultivate and make charcoal, which they did until1622 when the colony ceased with the death of the last leper, it was then left uninhabited for a hundred years or so.

The tiny “leper window” in the north wall enabled the lepers to “take part” in the service. The resident priest lived in the church at that time but would having nothing to do with the lepers and devoted himself solely to prayer.

Smugglers

The next group of people to use the area was In the early 1700s when smugglers often used the lepers dwellings as shelter and storage of their ill-gotten gains  but smuggling  died out  by the end of the 1700s and the area was abandoned again. Although its reported that services took place every Easter, but with only the Priest was  in attendance!

Occasional services are still held there today with a seating capacity for only 30 people. What a glorious setting the Celts  chose in which to praise God.

Poets

Just meters from  Culbone church is Ash farm, now a B&B, this is where Coleridge wrote his opium-induced "Kubla Khan" in which is was then interrupted by “a person from Porlock,” after which his inspiration left, as was the poem.

For this whimsical end-of-the-road place, Porlock Weir has lots on offer and a more picturesque chocolate box photogenic spot I know would be hard to find.

Getting there

The nearest airports are Bristol or Exeter and its nearest main town with railway station is Exeter or Taunton.

For accommodation, and further information take a look at the Porlock website.

www.porlock.co.uk

Rachel L Webb - www.andalucia-for-holidays.com

Photo’s Somerset Tourist Board