Day 9 Holford to Nether Stowey: A Coleridge Day on the Coleridge Way

For an OS map of today's walk click here.

When we sat down to plan the walk, we intentionally scheduled several shorter walking days—either to have an easy day after a long day or when we knew there was an attraction we wanted to visit. Today's walk falls into the latter category: a short 5 mile ramble first heading south up Holford Combe into the Quantocks, and then heading eastwards and down to the village of Nether Stowey, the home of Samuel Taylor Coleridge from 1797 to about 1800. (In fact, for part of the way today we were walking on the Coleridge Way, a recently created 36-mile trail from Nether Stowey to Porlock which follows in the footsteps of the poet and his friends William and Dorothy Wordsworth. We have already intermittently walked on this trail over the last day or so).

Almost upon our arrival in Holford last night, our B & B host Marilyn told us that her brother had had a kidney transplant 31 years ago and was still going strong, holding the record for the hospital where he had the transplant done. That was of course encouraging news to hear. She was also the first person on this trip to notice that Ken is wearing mismatched socks! His left boot fits more tightly than the right--because he had many gout attacks in his left big toe joint in the 1990s, that foot is actually wider, so he wears a thin sock on the left foot and a thick sock on the right. So far it has worked well.

Walking in Coleridge's footsteps...

...in beautiful Holford Combe.

The first stop on the road was at St. Mary's Church in Holford. As we were singing "Sometimes a Light Surprises," a beautiful hymn by William Cowper, we succeeded in surprising a sacristan who was just coming in to change the colors to white for Trinity Sunday. We had a good chat with her before we set out again. Holford Combe turned out to be an absolutely lovely little valley following a stream through woods of oak, holly, and one other ground-cover we couldn't identify. The sun filtered through the treetops, which grew closer and closer as we gained height at the head of the combe and turned eastwards towards Nether Stowey.
We then joined a road through the forest, with another deep valley beginning to form on our right and the dappled hillside on our left running up to an ancient hillfort at the top. A little later we left the road and broke out into the open with a marvelous view of the Somerset levels and coastline to the east and northeast, Wales northwards across the sea, and Nether Stowey just below us. It is interesting to think that we were walking in the footsteps of Wordsworth and Coleridge, who often walked in these beautiful valleys and hills. It is also easy to see how they would have been inspired here to write many of the poems that would make up their famous work Lyrical Ballads, which did much to initiate a revolution in English poetry. Indeed, it is strange to think that although Wordsworth and Coleridge came to be identified as the "Lake Poets" as a result of their undeniably strong connection to and residence in the Lake District, their earliest, groundbreaking work was produced in this beautiful corner of Somerset!

Coleridge Cottage

Coleridge's Quill Pen Set

We arrived in Nether Stowey in the early afternoon and, after a refreshing lemonade at the friendly local pub, had plenty of time to tour Coleridge Cottage just across the street. The National Trust has recently upgraded their exhibits here and Ken said that they did a great job of making something out of nothing, meaning that there were very few artifacts left from the time that Coleridge lived there, but they had done up the rooms to look like they might have when he was there. It is an excellent museum, with interesting and often interactive exhibits tracing the story of Coleridge's life and the family's time in Nether Stowey. A story I knew was featured—that Coleridge's wife Sara had accidentally spilled a pan of boiling milk on Coleridge's foot, which prevented him from going on a walk with the visiting William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Charles Lamb. Left at home, he instead wrote a poem, "This Lime Tree Bower my Prison." (Ken and I, when we lace on our boots in the morning, often say, "These hiking boots my prison," because there's no escaping them until the walk is done.) After a nice cream tea and cake at the tearoom and an exploration of the garden, where they have recently re-created the infamous lime tree bower, we retired to our B & B, which had a huge and comfortable room.

In the Kitchen

"This Lime Tree Bower My Prison"—A Recreation of the Original
(without Sara pouring anything on Ken's foot!)

We went to dinner at the same pub where we had had our nice drink earlier, but it was a rather different experience at dinner! We sat next to a couple who had just toured Cheddar Gorge (yes, where the cheese comes from). We chatted a bit and placed our food order—which had to be charged to table seven even though we we were at table five, because the previous order hadn't been cleared from table five. Ken ordered a spanikopita pie with vegetables and new potatoes, and I ordered chicken bites with dipping sauces and a side salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, and dressing. Ken's order arrived with the pie and chips. The server looked at it and noted it wasn't right. She said Ken could keep the chips (fries, in N. A.), and she would bring him some veg and new potatoes. At this point, our neighbors at the next table asked us if we knew of Fawlty Towers where we were from, and we said yes, we loved it. It seemed like we were having a slightly Fawlty-esque evening. They asked about a delay in their order, and when the server left I jokingly asked if they were waiting for a cheese salad. They said it was close—they had eaten dinner and were waiting . . . and waiting . . . for their final course of cheese and biscuits (crackers in N.A.). We had started eating—Ken's pie was lukewarm and slightly scorched on top, and the vegetables were barely cooked. My chicken was good, though the three sauces were ketchup, mayonnaise, and a spicy Thai sauce. I have no idea if that is usual or not. My salad had lettuce, cucumber, grapes, celery, peppers, but no tomatoes or dressing. Ken's new potatoes arrived a bit later, "nice and hot" the server said. They weren't new potatoes at all, but were small baker potatoes cut into slices. Soon after the potatoes arrived, our neighbors' cheese plate came. On it was an entire wheel of cheese wedges the circumference of a dinner plate—it could easily have fed twenty people! They tasted it and thought that it was composed of wedges of differently flavored cheddar. Usually you have a plate with a modest selection of three to four different kinds of cheese. We all giggled after the server left and joked back and forth about what could be done with that much cheese—doggie bags? I did feel a bit bad for the server who seemed new and stressed. I had a little less sympathy with the owner, who when I mentioned the different ingredients in my salad and that I had missed having the tomatoes (after he had asked if everything was fine with our meals) told me that they had run out of tomatoes two days ago. He had made similar comments to the other couple about running out of ingredients. I feel as though owners shouldn't expect guests to commiserate with them about problems with their business—something else that does happen on Fawlty Towers. Nevertheless, we did enjoy the evening, and really our meal was fine [Note that Sara is being a polite Canadian at this point!—Ken]. We didn't order cheese and biscuits, however!

14,249 steps, 10.686 km, 417.5 cal
OS getamap measured distance: 4.61 mi (7.42 km)