Lorna Doone Country: Malmsmead - Badgeworthy Water - Malmsmead

Bryan Cath

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Malmsmead - Brendon Common - Badgeworthy Water - Oare Church - Malmsmead

If you know the Lorna Doone story, this walk takes you through the countryside in which R D Blackmore set his novel. You pass the ruins of the Doones' property, the water slide, walk along beside the Badgeworthy (Badgery) Water and are able to visit Oare Church, the scene where Carver shot Lorna Doone. The walk itself takes you over the moorland of Brendon Common and down the picturesque Badgeworthy Water valley, with its banks of rhododendron bushes.

England - South West England - Somerset - Exmoor

Features

Flowers, Great Views, River, Toilets

10/12/2015 - Michael Barron

Walked this 10 October 2015. Directions good . Met about 15 people scattered around the whole walk. Apart from steepish climb at start very steep for a short distance and more through fields before arriving above Oare church. Exmoor Natural History Society (28) in Village hall now boarded up. An enjoyable walk in just over 3 hours.

2/8/2015 - MIKE BAILEY

Just the perfect walk. After an initial short and moderate climb, the next hour and a half gave beautiful vistas in every direction across Exmoor, followed by a lovely walk alongside a fast flowing stream with some lovely spots to picnic. After this the descent through the valleys into Oare and back to Malmsmead were perfect. Lucky that the day was wall to wall sunshine but we saw 3 people all day and had just the perfect walk.

7/27/2014 - Paul Kingdom

Great walk and easy to follow directions. Road now opened at Oare. Signs have recently been renewed at many points but basically follow description. Scattered sheep, ponies & cattle over the moorland sections mean dogs need to be kept on leads or under close control.

9/10/2008 - Walkingworld Administrator

This walk was updated September 2008.

7/19/2008 - Stuart Pitchford

We agree with the comments made by Sandra on 16/03/08. The reality on the ground is a little different from that in the walk description. One more important comment to note is that the Exmoor Sandpiper Inn has been renamed as the Blueball Inn. Elsewise a great walk despite the vagaries of the descriptiion.

3/16/2008 - Sandra Sturrock

Completed this excellent and varied walk on 13.03.08. I think this walk could do with being re-walked, re-written and updated. (If I'd had a pen with me I could have taken proper notes.) The early part of the walk is on moorland with lots of crossing paths; very easy to go wrong. Some joker has decided to take signs away in some places and swap blue waymarkers for yellow and vice versa. From memory, these are some of the errors: At point 4 there is no signpost to Doone Valley. At point 5 no signpost to Doone Valley. At point 8 no yellow waymarks throughout. At point 10, on reaching Badgeworthy Water,there HAD been a signpost, but it had been deliberately destroyed. At point 17 blue waymarks now turned to blue. I hope this is of help. We have used loads of your maps and are always very pleased with the amount and accuracy of directions. This is the first that we've had difficulty with - not the fault of the contributor, but whoever decided subsequently to either remove signs or re-sign routes.

6/21/2006 - Patrick Wyman

A marvellous walk, even though it's a great many years since I read the book! The yellow waymarks mentioned at point 8 don't seem to be there any more. There seems to be a variance between the directions and the waypoints going through Southern Wood. I followed the path at the edge of the wood, rather than the path shown on the OS map and waypoint 3a.