| Challacombe | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Challacombe Location within Devon | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Barnstaple |
| Postcode district | EX31 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Devon and Somerset |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| UK Parliament | |
Challacombe is a small village on the edge of the Exmoor National Park, in Devon, England. The village has a small general shop/Post Office and a single pub, the Black Venus. The village is on the B3358 road and is 5 miles west of Simonsbath.
Believed to be the only inn in England bearing this name, The Black Venus Inn is an old stone-built pub, a historic 16th century building with low ceiling and original beams. [1]
West Challacombe Manor is a medieval manor house in the area. It is described as a "white-washed house with rendered walls and Georgian framed windows on the south slope of Little Hangman Hill and looks like an archetypal Devon farmhouse rather than a medieval manor house." [2] It was restored between 1993-1999. Also of note is the historic Packhorse Bridge and Challacombe Church.
The nearby Shoulsbury castle is an Iron Age hill fort.
The name 'Challacombe' literally means 'cold valley'. The name derives from the Old English words ceald ('cold') and cumb ('valley'). The village was recorded as Celdecomba in the Domesday Book.
Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simonsbath. Exmoor is more precisely defined as the area of the former ancient royal hunting forest, also called Exmoor, which was officially surveyed 1815–1818 as 18,810 acres (7,610 ha) in extent. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 km (34 mi) of the Bristol Channel coast. The total area of the Exmoor National Park is 692.8 km2 (267.5 sq mi), of which 71% is in Somerset and 29% in Devon.
Dulverton is a small town and civil parish in west Somerset, England, near the border with Devon. The town had a population of 1,408 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes the hamlets of Battleton and Ashwick which is located approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north west of Dulverton. To the west of the hamlet lies Ashwick House, built in the Edwardian style in 1901. Also nearby is the estate of Northmoor, formerly a seat of Sir Frederick Wills, 1st Baronet of Northmoor, one of the four Wills Baronetcys, and the founders of the Imperial Tobacco Company. In 1929 Sir Frederick's son & heir, Sir Gilbert Wills, 2nd Baronet, was raised to the peerage as Baron Dulverton, whose principal seat was at Batsford Park, near Batsford, Gloucestershire.
Combe Martin is a village, civil parish and former manor on the North Devon coast about 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Ilfracombe. It is a small seaside resort with a sheltered cove on the northwest edge of the Exmoor National Park.
Dunster is a village, civil parish and former manor within the English county of Somerset, today just within the north-eastern boundary of the Exmoor National Park. It lies on the Bristol Channel coast 2.5 miles (4 km) south-southeast of Minehead and 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Taunton. The United Kingdom Census of 2011 recorded a parish population of 817.
Berrynarbor is a village, civil parish, former manor and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 749, increasing to 802 at the 2011 census. The village is located on the north coast of the county to the north of Exmoor, about three miles east of Ilfracombe. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the east by the parishes of Combe Martin, Kentisbury, East Down, Marwood, Bittadon, and Ilfracombe. Berrynarbor has within its purview to all sides a mixture of dense woodlands and farms and lies within the North Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Somerset is a rural county in the southwest of England, covering 4,171 square kilometres (1,610 sq mi). It is bounded on the north-west by the Bristol Channel, on the north by Bristol and Gloucestershire, on the north-east by Wiltshire, on the south-east by Dorset, and on the south west and west by Devon. It has broad central plains with several ranges of low hills. The landscape divides into four main geological sections from the Silurian through the Devonian and Carboniferous to the Permian which influence the landscape, together with water-related features.
Bratton Fleming is a large village, civil parish and former manor near Barnstaple, in Devon, England. It lies a few miles west of Exmoor. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Challacombe, Brayford, Stoke Rivers, Goodleigh, Shirwell, Loxhore, Arlington and Kentisbury. The population of the parish in 2001 was 942, falling to 928 in 2011. There is an electoral ward with the same name which at the 2011 census had a population of 2,117.
Brendon is a village in Devon, England, close to the border with Somerset within the Exmoor National Park. The village is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of Lynton and 15 miles (24 km) west of Minehead in the East Lyn Valley. It is located just off the A39 and is on two long distance footpaths, the Coleridge Way and the Samaritans Way South West. The Church of St Brendon is 2 mi (3 km) from the village and was built in 1738, possibly with building material brought from another site.
Withypool is a small village in Somerset, England, near the centre of Exmoor National Park and close to the border with Devon. The word Withy means "willow". The civil parish, known as Withypool and Hawkridge, covers 3,097 hectares, includes the village of Hawkridge and has a population around 201.
Holnicote in the parish of Selworthy, West Somerset, England, is a historic estate consisting of 12,420 acres of land, much situated within the Exmoor National Park.
Newton Ferrers is a village and former manor and ecclesiastical parish in the English county of Devon; it is now in the civil parish of Newton and Noss. It is situated on a creek of the River Yealm estuary, about 6 miles (10 km) south-east of the City of Plymouth. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. According to the United Kingdom Census 2011 the population of the village of Newton Ferrers was 1,268 and that of the electoral ward of Newton and Noss was 1,814.
Washford is a village on the Washford River in the civil parish of Old Cleeve, Somerset, England. The village is next to Cleeve Abbey, one of the best-preserved medieval monasteries in England. It centred in a valley close to the Bristol Channel on the A39 road 7 miles (11 km) east of the resort town of Minehead and 2 miles (3 km) southwest of the port of Watchet.
Simonsbath is a small village high on Exmoor in the English county of Somerset. It is the principal settlement in the Exmoor civil parish, which is the largest and most sparsely populated civil parish on Exmoor, covering nearly 32 square miles (83 km2) but with a population, at the time of the 2001 census, of 203 in 78 households, reducing to 156 at the 2011 Census. The River Exe rises from a valley to the north, and the River Barle runs through the village and is crossed by a triple-arched medieval bridge that was extensively repaired after floods in 1952.
Roadwater is a village 3 miles (5 km) south-west of Williton, on the northern edge of the Exmoor National Park, in Somerset, England.
Doddiscombsleigh is a small settlement in Devon, England. It is 5 miles (8 km) southwest of the city of Exeter and one mile East of the River Teign and the Teign Valley.
The following is a list of reportedly haunted locations in the United Kingdom.
The Lynmouth Flood occurred on the night of the 15–16 August 1952, principally affecting the village of Lynmouth, in north Devon. A storm with heavy rainfall, combined with already saturated soil and flood debris, led to the flooding of the village and a total loss of 34 lives.
Black Dog is a village in Mid Devon, ten miles west of Tiverton and six miles north of Crediton.
The Street is a linear settlement in the civil parish of Lawshall in the Babergh district in the county of Suffolk, England. It extends from Lawshall Hall in the west to Donkey Lane in the east. The settlement includes Swanfield, east of the Swan Public House and the small residential development of Hall Mead which is opposite All Saints Church.
The Exmoor Group is a late Devonian to early Carboniferous lithostratigraphic group in southwest England whose outcrop extends from Croyde in north Devon east across Exmoor to Minehead in west Somerset. The group comprises the following formations the:
Media related to Challacombe at Wikimedia Commons