Alcombe Common and Dunster on 25 October 2010

This was a short 3.5 mile walk taking advantage of a brilliant sunny day. It took me a leisurely 90 minutes.

Rather than upload images twice, I have referred them to the URLs of images in my Picasa Web Album rather than upload them separately to the blog. Lets see how it goes.

I started from Alcombe near Minehead and walked up the road from the Britannia Inn towards the Youth Hostel. The track led through woodland and Autumn colours were showing.  I climbed past the Youth Hostel and onto the open ground of Alcombe Common. Excellent views over Minehead were revealed. Visibility was reasonably good and Wales was clearly visible.

Minehead and the Bristol Channel from Alcombe Common

I saw a steam train on the West Somerset Railway, making its way from Dunster to the terminus station at Minehead. It looked tiny from this distance.

A steam train on the West Somerset Railway

I climbed up to the ridge  and turned eastwards towards Dunster. After a short distance the path diveded. As indicated by signs the right hand path goes to Dunster via the Cemetary and the left hand one goes via Conduit Lane. I took the left fork and got a splendid view of Blue Anchor Bay on the way.

Blue Anchor Bay

Conduit Lane is a strange name, not very Somerset, but the trusty 1:25000 OS map shows that St Leonard's Well is on the route. Apparently, the well used to supply fresh water to a Benedictine priory that existed in Dunster. The water was conveyed to the priory via - yes a conduit. The priory was dissolved by King Henry VIII, but the church and some buildings remain. The well is in a stone building with a locked door. Pipework leads out of the bottom, so it looks as though it still supplies water to someone. The conduit is exposed at the bottom of the lane (a footpath) but no water was flowing, although the path had a dribble of water running down it.from the well.

I did not go into the village but turned left and after a few yards found Butter Cross, or rather, what is left of it. It seems to have lost its top part. The story goes that it derives its name from having been a meeting place where people sold butter. It used to be in the village but has been moved. The English Heritage website says it is managed by the National Trust.

I turned off the tarmac lane that goes past Butter Cross to take the right hand of two paths that would take me to the old A39 road, now a back lane, that would take me back towards Alcombe.