"Stapley's little valley looks down over the country boundary into Devon, towards a grim murder scene."
Walk directions
A telephone box currently marks the start of the walk. Some 20 paces below it a lane runs down between houses. After 100yds (91m) keep ahead into a shady path. At a broken stile bear right to a ford with a footbridge.
Head up a wide and overgrown track. At a junction cross on to a small, path that's muddy to start with. This heads uphill, following a bank, to a stile. In the scrub beyond (abundant nettles in season) bear right, to a field corner and a stile back into woodland. A small path runs along the top edge of Paye Plantation, to emerge near Beerhill Farm.
Bear left for 100yds (91m) to a waymarked gate below the farm, and a second just beyond. Keep ahead, below the farm and above the wood, to a gate into a field with some wooden sheds ahead. Skirt these, and follow the field’s edge along the top of the wood to Rainbow Lane.
Cross the lane diagonally left and follow the edge of a long narrow field. Flinty-looking chert lies in the field, and over on the left, Luddery Hill Farm is built of it. After this field, a stile leads into ash trees. Again the path runs along the top edge of the wood. With an isolated house visible ahead, a waymarker indicates the diverted right of way bearing right. This path slants gently downhill, to meet the house's driveway at a bend. Cross on to a wide path just above the driveway. At the end of the wood turn down right, to rejoin the driveway to the road below. The driveway gate may be padlocked in winter.
Cross into the trackway of Biscombe Farm. Bear left to a field gate, and go down the right edge of a large field to a stile in a hedge gap on the right. Slant down the following field to a stile at its bottom, right-hand corner, with stepping stones across the stream beyond. Go up the right-hand edge of the next field to a stile. This leads into a sunken track; turn left and follow it up to a lane. (If the track is impossibly soggy, you can turn left along the field top and through a gate to join it higher up.)
Turn right to walk up the road. Where the road levels and bends left, turn right into the driveway of Craigend Cottage to find a stile where the driveway bends right. Turn left along field tops, with a hedge bank on your left and a view of Devon over your right shoulder. At the end of a second field a field gate leads to a tractor track. After a short, muddy passage past Stapley Farm you reach the village road at the telephone box.
The forests of the Blackdown borders were almost the last part of Somerset to be cleared for agriculture. Here are few proper villages, just the occasional cluster of cottages around a farm. There was no obvious place for the parish church and it stands almost alone at what was once a convenient... track junction. With the mechanisation of farming, the area went into decline again. During the 19th century the population outside the small towns halved. Today a retired couple may occupy a cottage built for a farmworker's family of eight or a dozen people. This quiet corner of the upper Culm Valley was briefly infamous in the 1850s, when a native of this borderland became one of the last Englishmen to be hanged in public. The Clayhidon murder 'I think that man gathers more money than anyone else in the parish.' George Sparkes, the speaker, had just received £1 1s 5d, some butter and a drink of beer as his pay for six days of tough fieldwork in the February frost. The man he spoke of, Richard Blackmore, was a local land surveyor who had spent the day collecting tithes and taxes. Blackmore was carrying £16 in notes and gold sovereigns – about £3,000 in today's money. The two men were drinking in the White Hart at Clayhidon until 1am. Sparkes soon ran out of money. He tried to raise cash at cards, lost, and ended the evening owing Blackmore three pints. Drunk and resentful, he snatched a pair of tongs from the smithy, stalked the rent collector through the fields, and battered him to death. Some of the bloodstained sovereigns were found in his cottage the next morning. The trial, which took place at Exeter, was not a long one. Sparkes seemed as shocked as anyone at what he had done; but the law allowed only one sentence. It's clear that the judge was reluctant to pronounce it for so senseless a crime: he voiced the words 'to be hanged by the neck until dead' almost inaudibly, and bowed his head in tears. It is said that 10,000 people attended the hanging. The reporter for the Exeter Flying Post (April 1853) recorded disapprovingly the presence of women and children: 'the broadcloth of the middle classes jostling the cotton of the mechanics and labourers – a strange motley for so sad a scene and too painfully indicative of the fact that the 'lower orders' are not the only people who relish the sight of a public strangulation'. The gallows employed the 'new drop' – a humane innovation so that the condemned man should break his neck in the fall. And the space below the trapdoor was boarded in, allowing him to die in private. The White Horse Inn has gone, but there's a memorial stone at the murder site – this is just south of Clayhidon, at the foot of Battle Street.
Somerset remains rural and unspoiled, and ever popular areas to visit are the limestone and red sandstone Mendip Hills rising to over 1,000 feet, and by complete contrast, to the south and southwest, the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. Another popular spot, the Quantocks, once the haunt of poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, are noted for their gentle slopes, heather-covered moorland expanses and red deer.
"Stapley's little valley looks down over the country boundary into Devon, towards a grim murder scene."
Walk details
1hr 40min
Difficulty:
Easy
Gradient:
Gentle
Distance:
3 miles (4.8kms)
Ascent:
500ft (152m)
Walk directions
A telephone box currently marks the start of the walk. Some 20 paces below it a lane runs down between houses. After 100yds (91m) keep ahead into a shady path. At a broken stile bear right to a ford with a footbridge.
1 of 6
Head up a wide and overgrown track. At a junction cross on to a small, path that's muddy to start with. This heads uphill, following a bank, to a stile. In the scrub beyond (abundant nettles in season) bear right, to a field corner and a stile back into woodland. A small path runs along the top edge of Paye Plantation, to emerge near Beerhill Farm.
2 of 6
Bear left for 100yds (91m) to a waymarked gate below the farm, and a second just beyond. Keep ahead, below the farm and above the wood, to a gate into a field with some wooden sheds ahead. Skirt these, and follow the field’s edge along the top of the wood to Rainbow Lane.
3 of 6
Cross the lane diagonally left and follow the edge of a long narrow field. Flinty-looking chert lies in the field, and over on the left, Luddery Hill Farm is built of it. After this field, a stile leads into ash trees. Again the path runs along the top edge of the wood. With an isolated house visible ahead, a waymarker indicates the diverted right of way bearing right. This path slants gently downhill, to meet the house's driveway at a bend. Cross on to a wide path just above the driveway. At the end of the wood turn down right, to rejoin the driveway to the road below. The driveway gate may be padlocked in winter.
4 of 6
Cross into the trackway of Biscombe Farm. Bear left to a field gate, and go down the right edge of a large field to a stile in a hedge gap on the right. Slant down the following field to a stile at its bottom, right-hand corner, with stepping stones across the stream beyond. Go up the right-hand edge of the next field to a stile. This leads into a sunken track; turn left and follow it up to a lane. (If the track is impossibly soggy, you can turn left along the field top and through a gate to join it higher up.)
5 of 6
Turn right to walk up the road. Where the road levels and bends left, turn right into the driveway of Craigend Cottage to find a stile where the driveway bends right. Turn left along field tops, with a hedge bank on your left and a view of Devon over your right shoulder. At the end of a second field a field gate leads to a tractor track. After a short, muddy passage past Stapley Farm you reach the village road at the telephone box.
The forests of the Blackdown borders were almost the last part of Somerset to be cleared for agriculture. Here are few proper villages, just the occasional cluster of cottages around a farm. There was no obvious place for the parish church and it stands almost alone at what was once a convenient... track junction. With the mechanisation of farming, the area went into decline again. During the 19th century the population outside the small towns halved. Today a retired couple may occupy a cottage built for a farmworker's family of eight or a dozen people. This quiet corner of the upper Culm Valley was briefly infamous in the 1850s, when a native of this borderland became one of the last Englishmen to be hanged in public. The Clayhidon murder 'I think that man gathers more money than anyone else in the parish.' George Sparkes, the speaker, had just received £1 1s 5d, some butter and a drink of beer as his pay for six days of tough fieldwork in the February frost. The man he spoke of, Richard Blackmore, was a local land surveyor who had spent the day collecting tithes and taxes. Blackmore was carrying £16 in notes and gold sovereigns – about £3,000 in today's money. The two men were drinking in the White Hart at Clayhidon until 1am. Sparkes soon ran out of money. He tried to raise cash at cards, lost, and ended the evening owing Blackmore three pints. Drunk and resentful, he snatched a pair of tongs from the smithy, stalked the rent collector through the fields, and battered him to death. Some of the bloodstained sovereigns were found in his cottage the next morning. The trial, which took place at Exeter, was not a long one. Sparkes seemed as shocked as anyone at what he had done; but the law allowed only one sentence. It's clear that the judge was reluctant to pronounce it for so senseless a crime: he voiced the words 'to be hanged by the neck until dead' almost inaudibly, and bowed his head in tears. It is said that 10,000 people attended the hanging. The reporter for the Exeter Flying Post (April 1853) recorded disapprovingly the presence of women and children: 'the broadcloth of the middle classes jostling the cotton of the mechanics and labourers – a strange motley for so sad a scene and too painfully indicative of the fact that the 'lower orders' are not the only people who relish the sight of a public strangulation'. The gallows employed the 'new drop' – a humane innovation so that the condemned man should break his neck in the fall. And the space below the trapdoor was boarded in, allowing him to die in private. The White Horse Inn has gone, but there's a memorial stone at the murder site – this is just south of Clayhidon, at the foot of Battle Street.
Somerset remains rural and unspoiled, and ever popular areas to visit are the limestone and red sandstone Mendip Hills rising to over 1,000 feet, and by complete contrast, to the south and southwest, the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. Another popular spot, the Quantocks, once the haunt of poets Coleridge and Wordsworth, are noted for their gentle slopes, heather-covered moorland expanses and red deer.
