Withycombe

Carhampton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, 4 miles (6.4 km) to the east of Minehead. Carhampton civil parish stretches from the Bristol Channel coast inland to Exmoor. The parish has a population of 865 (2011 census).

The Anglican Church of St Bartholomew in Rodhuish, Somerset, England was built in the 15th century. It is a Grade II* listed building.

Blue Anchor railway station is situated in the seaside village of Blue Anchor, Somerset, England, close to the larger village of Carhampton. It is on the West Somerset Railway, a heritage railway, and it houses one of the two museums of the West Somerset Railway Heritage Trust.

Blue Anchor is a seaside village, in the parish of Old Cleeve, close to Carhampton in Somerset, England. The village takes its name from a 17th-century inn; the bay, Blue Anchor Bay, was previously known as Cleeve Bay. The bay and inn were the subjects of a watercolour by J. M. W. Turner in 1818, now in the Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight. The village marks one end of the Blue Anchor to Lilstock Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest along which the Triassic cliffs have geological interest for the variety of fossils. The coloured alabaster found in the cliffs gave rise to the name of the colour "Watchet Blue". The village lies on the route of the West Somerset Coast Path and Celtic Way Exmoor Option. Blue Anchor railway station is a station on the West Somerset Railway, a heritage railway in Somerset. It is situated in the village and houses the museum of the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust. Within the village is the only example of an updraught brick kiln known to have survived in Somerset. It was built around 1830, supplied by small vessels carrying limestone to the small culm landing, and is now used as a garage. The kiln is thought to have been used until the 1870s when the large-scale production of bricks in Bridgwater rendered small brickyards uneconomic. Marshwood farmhouse dates from the late 15th century and was originally a manor house or grange. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building. Coincidentally there is another Blue Anchor Inn directly north across the Bristol Channel in East Aberthaw, The Vale of Glamorgan.

Blue Anchor to Lilstock Coast SSSI (grid reference ST033435 to grid reference ST195462) is a 742.8 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Blue Anchor and Lilstock in Somerset, notified in 1971. It provides an outstanding series of sections through the Early Jurassic Lower Lias, spanning the Hettangian and Pliensbachian Stages and named the "Lilstock Formation". This sequence and the good Rhaetian succession beneath are repeatedly affected by faulting, making it of interest to geologists and fossil hunters. It also displays coastal geomorphology which demonstrates a particularly well-developed series of intertidal shore platforms varying in width from about 200-600m. The cliff and beach are rich in reptile remains, including complete skeletons. Lilstock also yields ammonites, shells and fish remains. A unique specimen of an ichthyosaur, named Excalibosaurus costini McGowan, 1986 in which the lower jaw is shorter than the upper was found in the Lower Jurassic Sinemurian Stage, Lower Lias beds on the foreshore at Lilstock and is now in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. The Triassic cliffs have geological interest for the variety of fossils. The coloured alabaster found in the cliffs gave rise to the name of the colour "Watchet Blue". It is on the West Somerset Coast Path.

The River Avill is a small river on Exmoor in Somerset, England. It rises on the eastern slopes of Dunkery Beacon and flows north through Timberscombe and Dunster flowing into the Bristol Channel at Dunster Beach. It runs South-West of Minehead, and North of Taunton. The Gallox Bridge in Dunster dates from the 15th century. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is a narrow stone packhorse bridge, on the southern outskirts of Dunster, with two arches over the River Avill. It was originally known as Gallows Bridge and has a roadway width of 1.2 metres (3.9 ft), a total width of 1.9 metres (6.2 ft) and is 13.5 metres (44.3 ft) long. The river then skirts Dunster New Park surrounding Dunster Castle. Near to Dunster Beach the stream is crossed by a bridge on the West Somerset Railway. The river was part of the inspiration for the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.

Rodhuish Common is a univallate Iron Age hill fort in the county of Somerset, England. There is a small oval enclosure which is thought to be of Iron Age date.

Chapel Cleeve Manor is a Grade II* listed building in Chapel Cleeve, Somerset, England. It started life in the 1450s as a pilgrims' hostel. The building was enlarged in the 19th and 20th centuries when it was a private house and then a hotel.

Old Cleeve is a village 5 miles (8 km) south east of Minehead in Somerset, England, and also a civil parish. The civil parish of Old Cleeve covers an area of 2,092 hectares (5,170 acres) and includes the villages of Old Cleeve, Roadwater and Washford as well as hamlets such as Bilbrook, Chapel Cleeve, Golsoncott and Leighland Chapel. Approximately half the parish lies within the Exmoor National Park. The remaining half is on the southern edge of Exmoor. The village has been in existence since the early 13th century. The village held its first council meeting in 1711. By the 1720s the parish had several churches, in which to meet. The town hall was built in 1727. The first church here was built in 1694, built by the Eastern Christian Society. This church was destroyed in a fire in 1847, and has been rebuilt and restored. In 2011, the population of the parish was 1,672.

Dunster Working Watermill (also known as Castle Mill) is a restored 18th century watermill, situated on the River Avill, close to Gallox Bridge, in the grounds of Dunster Castle in Dunster, Somerset, England. It is a Grade II* listed building and within the Grade II* registered parkland of the castle. The mill stands on a site where a mill was first recorded in the Domesday Book, but the present building was constructed around 1780. It closed in 1962 but was restored in 1979 and is still used to grind flour. The equipment is powered by two overshot wheels. It is owned and run by the National Trust.

Dunster Castle is a former motte and bailey castle, now a country house, in the village of Dunster, Somerset, England. The castle lies on the top of a steep hill called the Tor, and has been fortified since the late Anglo-Saxon period. After the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century, William de Mohun constructed a timber castle on the site as part of the pacification of Somerset. A stone shell keep was built on the motte by the start of the 12th century, and the castle survived a siege during the early years of the Anarchy. At the end of the 14th century the de Mohuns sold the castle to the Luttrell family, who continued to occupy the property until the late 20th century. The castle was expanded several times by the Luttrell family during the 17th and 18th centuries; they built a large manor house within the Lower Ward of the castle in 1617, and this was extensively modernised, first during the 1680s and then during the 1760s. The medieval castle walls were mostly destroyed following the siege of Dunster Castle at the end of the First English Civil War, when Parliament ordered the defences to be slighted to prevent their further use. In the 1860s and 1870s, the architect Anthony Salvin was employed to remodel the castle to fit Victorian tastes; this work extensively changed the appearance of Dunster to make it appear more Gothic and Picturesque. Following the death of Alexander Luttrell in 1944, the family was unable to afford the death duties on his estate. The castle and surrounding lands were sold off to a property firm, the family continuing to live in the castle as tenants. The Luttrells bought back the castle in 1954, but in 1976 Colonel Sir Walter Luttrell gave Dunster Castle and most of its contents to the National Trust, which operates it as a tourist attraction. It is a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument.

The Roadwater railway station was an intermediate station on the West Somerset Mineral Railway (WSMR), which was constructed primarily to transport iron ore from mines to Watchet harbour in Somerset, England. The line was isolated from other rail networks, though it passed beneath what is now the West Somerset Railway north of Roadwater. The line's seven stations were designed by Rice Hopkins. Roadwater was one of five stations that shared a distinctive architectural style. It provided typical goods services, as well as coal and passenger facilities. A Temperance Hall was also constructed nearby.