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River Avill

ExmoorRivers of Somerset
Gallox Bridge
Gallox Bridge

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article River Avill (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

River Avill
Steam Coast Trail,

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Wikipedia: River AvillContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 51.189722222222 ° E -3.4219444444444 °
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Steam Coast Trail

Steam Coast Trail

England, United Kingdom
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Gallox Bridge
Gallox Bridge
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Blue Anchor
Blue Anchor

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.

Dunster Castle
Dunster Castle

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.