Approached by precipitous routes on all sides except where it opens to the sea, Oare valley has long been regarded as one of the most wild and romantic corners of Exmoor. The village and its somewhat unremarkable church have, of course, been immortalized by Blackmore in Lorna Doone. It was here that Lorna Doone married John Ridd, only to fall (happily not fatally) to a musket ball fired through the window by the dastardly Carver Doone.
Blackmore knew the area well; his grandfather was rector of Oare from 1809 to 1842 (despite the local saying, “Culbone, Oare and Stoke Pero, Three parishes no parson’ll go”. There were and are Ridds living in the area and Yenworthy and Parsonage Farms, both familiar to Blackmore, do exist.
Even before Blackmore wrote his novel, the Oare valley was a place of pilgrimage; the Prince of Wales visited in 1863. More remarkable still are the stories of people who have literally spent all their lives in the valley, the last being a farm worker who died in the 1950s having only left his birthplace once to go to Porlock.
Other beautiful features of Somerset worth visiting include: Dunster, Exmoor, the Blackdown Hills and the Brendon Hills, Forde Abbey, the Mendip Hills, Porlock and Porlock Weir, the Quantock Hills, the Somerset Levels and Wells. |
