Where the Exmoor coast meets the Bristol Channel. Discover Lynton and Lynmouth – joined since 1890 by the highest and steepest fully water-powered railway in the world.
Six hundred feet of cliff, hidden coves and the South West Coast Path running the whole length of the north Devon coast.
Follow the coast
Watersmeet, the Valley of the Rocks and six circular routes that all begin on foot from the villages.
Find a walk
The 1890 cliff railway, the Rhenish Tower, the 1952 flood and the moor that Blackmore wrote into fiction.
Read the histories
Harbour-side inns, tea rooms on Lynmouth Street, market days, and the produce that comes off the moor and the Exmoor coast.
Eat and drinkOpened in 1890 and still running on the system it was built with, the cliff railway lifts passengers 500 feet between Lynmouth harbour and the clifftop streets of Lynton on nothing but water and gravity. It is the reason Lynton and Lynmouth work as one place rather than two.
The upper carriage fills its tank from the West Lyn river until it outweighs the carriage below. It descends, hauling the lighter one up, and empties its tank at the bottom. No engine has ever been fitted.
See how it works
How it works
Devon, 1952
On the night of 15 August 1952 nine inches of rain fell on Exmoor. The East and West Lyn rose together and carried the village into the sea. Thirty-four people died, and the Lynmouth that stands today was rebuilt around a widened river channel.
Read the storyExmoor in fiction
R. D. Blackmore set his 1869 romance in the combes above Lynmouth, and the moor has answered to the book ever since. Badgworthy Water, the Doone Valley and Oare church can all be walked in a day from the coast.
Explore the story
Victorian hotels on the Lynton slope and old coaching inns along the East Lyn, most of them with dinner and a view of the Exmoor coast.
See hotels and inns
Family-run guesthouses across Lynton and Lynmouth, several of them a few doors from the harbour or the cliff railway.
See guesthouses
Self-catering cottages and farmhouses inland, plus the valley campsites and caravan parks around Barbrook.
See cottages and campingThe scenic loop out of Lynton over Countisbury, along the coast to Porlock and back across the moor.
Plan your route
Weather today
The Exmoor coast sits several degrees milder than the moor above it, and the two can differ by a jumper in the same hour. Check both before a walk that climbs.
Local conditionsGetting here
Barnstaple is the nearest railway station, about an hour away by road. The 309 and 310 buses run in from Barnstaple, and the north Devon coast road arrives over Countisbury Hill.
How to get hereMarket days
Pannier markets run through the week across North Devon and West Somerset, from Barnstaple and South Molton to Minehead and Dulverton. Produce, crafts and the odd secondhand book stall.
See local marketsWhat's on
Walking festivals, the Lynmouth regatta weekend, carnival in the autumn and a run of open-garden and food events on the moor through the summer.
View eventsBefore you come
By the cliff railway, which covers the five hundred feet between them in under two minutes and has run on water and gravity since 1890. There is also a road, which is walkable downhill and a genuine climb the other way.
A day covers the harbour, the cliff railway, the Flood Memorial Hall and the walk to Watersmeet. Two days adds the Valley of the Rocks and a stretch of the coast path. A week is not too long if you are walking, because the moor behind the villages is effectively a second destination.
Not for the villages. Almost everything worth seeing is within two miles of the harbour and the cliff railway handles the height. For Dunkery Beacon, Porlock, the Doone Valley or the Atlantic beaches you will want one - the bus network between the moorland villages is thin.
Autumn, for colour in the oak woods, water in the rivers, the warmest sea of the year and quiet streets. Spring is a close second for walking. July and August are warm and busy; winter is short-dayed, often wild, and the season for the dark skies above the moor.
No. The shore here is boulder and coarse sand below high cliffs, and the tidal range is among the largest in the world. The sand beaches are on the Atlantic coast around Woolacombe and Croyde, between forty minutes and an hour west by road.
Around nine inches of rain fell on a saturated Exmoor on the night of 15 August. The East and West Lyn rose together, the bridges failed, and a large part of the village was carried into the sea. Thirty-four people died. The village was rebuilt around a widened river channel, which is the most visible thing about Lynmouth today.
