Snowdrop Valley: railway excursions to see the snowdrops

Over the coming half term holiday, 11^th - 19^th February 2017, the West Somerset Railway is running a diesel service which includes a trip to Snowdrop Valley.

The train leaves Bishops Lydeard at 10.30, arriving in Williton at about 11.00. Included in the ticket price is a bus service to Wheddon Cross. You can then either catch the park and ride bus (the cost of this is not included in your West Somerset Railway ticket) down to the valley or make your way on foot. Your bus will collect you from Wheddon Cross at 14.00 to meet the return train from Williton back to Bishops Lydeard.

Find more information and make your train booking on the West Somerset Railway website

 While you are in Wheddon Cross, you can enjoy lunch (or maybe just coffee and cake, tea and scones or our lovely home-made teacakes) at Exmoor House – we run a pop-up Snowdrop Valley tearoom. Our food is something special: more details here.  And if you'd like to spend a few days on beautiful Exmoor and enjoy some of the other sights too, why not book a short break with us? We offer bed and breakfast, and dinner too.

More information about Snowdrop Valley, with regular updates, can be found on the Wheddon Cross website.

Snowdrop Valley 2016 and our pop-up tea room

The official dates for Exmoor’s famous Snowdrop Valley this year are 30^th January to 28^th February. During this time the road to the valley is closed, but you can walk down to see the snowdrops via various routes from Wheddon Cross (the public footpaths are of course open all year round and it is always a nice walk, though you need to be reasonably fit as the way is steep). 

The snowdrops on 24th January - photo by Michael Edwards

 If you don’t want to walk, a park and ride bus service runs between Wheddon Cross and Snowdrop valley each day from 6^th to 21^st February. For more details, including the bus timetable, walking route maps, the Snowdrop Valley brochure and information about special arrangements for people who have disabilities, visit the  
Wheddon Cross village website


At Exmoor House guest house we are opening our annual pop-up tea room from 30^th January until 28^th February inclusive. Opening hours are generally from 11am until 3pm, although if we don’t have many dinners to do for our staying guests (our bed and breakfast breaks with dinner are very popular) then we may stay open a little longer in the afternoon.

Everything is made here by Frank the chef, for example bread, teacakes, cakes, scones, jams & pickles….Some of our tearoom specialities are soup, sandwiches, ploughman’s lunches - and not forgetting Somerset cream teas (including savoury cream teas for those who don’t have a sweet tooth).

Our dining room only holds about 14 people, so if you have a particular date in mind when you’d like to come for lunch, we’d advise you to book. Call Rosi & Frank on 01643 841432.

Exmoor Walking Festival 2015

The Incline, Old Mineral Line

In 2015 the Exmoor Walking Festival will run (or should that be walk?) from Saturday 2^nd to Saturday 9^th May. The popular format of the past few years is continuing: the initial walks take place on the Devon side of Exmoor and the later ones on the Somerset side. There are no walks on the Thursday, so if you’re visiting the area for the festival, this could be a rest day or a chance to do a self-guided walk.

As usual there is a great range of walks. Some are themed around Exmoor wildlife: searching

The beach near Blue Anchor

for red deer, listening for birdsong, discovering rare lichens. You can also walk alongside the West Somerset steam railway (and one itinerary starts with a rail trip from Dunster to Washford). There is the opportunity to learn about the area’s history, with walks that take in, for example, part of the old Mineral Line, or places linked to the work of the Knight family. Also you could visit Lundy Island; join a literary discussion with the Walking Book Club; learn some more about orienteering…

For more information and to book places, visit the website at www.exmoorwalkingfestival.co.uk or call 01271 883131.

Want a lovely place to stay while you’re here for the Walking Festival? Book a dinner bed and breakfast break (with picnic lunches too if you like) at Exmoor House. We are in a great location in the heart of the National Park and we have very good facilities for walkers: www.exmoorhotel.co.uk

Exmoor accommodation for Snowdrop Valley: dinner bed and breakfast breaks

Exmoor’s valley of snowdrops, once a well-kept secret, is becoming more well known. About a mile fromWheddon Cross, this beautiful wooded Somerset river valley is a wonderfully natural setting for drifts of snowdrops and perfect for a February visit.

If you want to celebrate these early signs of spring with a few days away, why not book a short break at Exmoor House? We’re within walking distance of the snowdrops (but if you’re not a walker there is a special bus service that will take you down to the valley and back).

We have a special offer for the snowdrop season: £10 off the normal price of our three night Exmoor dinner bed and breakfast breaks (making the cost from just £164 per person) plus a free cream tea and a free bottle of house wine during your stay. Find more information here:

exmoorhotel.co.uk/whyvisitnow.htm

If you are local to Wheddon Cross you might like to visit our February tearoom… proper home-made food,expertly cooked using good local ingredients. Here are some details:

exmoorhotel.co.uk/specialevents.htm

We look forward to seeing you soon!

The History of Exmoor House

One of the things that attracted us to Exmoor House when we were looking round for an Exmoor bed and breakfast or guest house to buy: it has a very interesting history. You might think that Exmoor House, with its large picture window, looks a bit like a shop, and you’d be right: it was built as a tailor’s shop for Robert Melhuish, back in the early 1900s. Not just a shop, though: as well as the fitting and cutting rooms, and plenty of living space for the tailor, his family and staff such as apprentices, there was a village reading room attached.

The house, like much of the area around Wheddon Cross, was part of the Bouverie Estate, which was sold off in 1926. At that time the reading room was described as the ‘Village Club Room’ and there was also a skittle alley at the back of the building. Mr Melhuish paid £20 a year for the Exmoor House lease (‘a very low rent’ according to the sales particulars) and the village club committee paid a nominal rent of £1 a year.

Mr Melhuish specialised in making hunting gear, which would have been in big demand at that time, though we know that he did make other garments too (we’ve met somebody who had his wedding suit made here). Dunkery View, the house next door, was also a tailor’s shop and there was plenty of work for both businesses.

A neighbour tells us that Mr Melhuish sometimes used to ride his pony over to the  Brendon Hill chapel (also known as the Beulah Chapel) near Ralegh’s Cross, to preach there. Another neighbour has memories of their grandfather cycling up the hill from Dunster, carrying a bolt of cloth on his back.

Exmoor House stopped being a tailor’s shop in 1945. For a while it was an ‘open all hours’ general store. Some people in the village remember the reading room being set up as a kind of Christmas grotto each year so that children could go there to choose their presents.

In the 1960s the house was split up into flats and bedsits, and we believe that it became a guest house in the late 1960s or early 1970s. An advertisement from the Exmoor Review of 1973 proclaimed that there were ‘three bathrooms with a continuous supply of hot water’. We have a few more bathrooms now! Intriguingly, though, some old photos taken when the house was still a tailor’s shop show ‘guest house’ signs on the wall. We think that the family probably rented out rooms to passing journeymen.

Nowadays we have people from all over the world staying in our lovely – and charmingly quirky - house to enjoy this beautiful part of Exmoor. The former shop is now the dining room for guests and the reading room is our guest sitting room. There are plenty of books and magazines in there  - and no TV - so it’s still a good place to read. I wonder what Mr Melhuish would think if he came to visit?