Cutcombe – Walking Routes and Prehistoric Landscape

Cutcombe combines walking routes with a landscape shaped by prehistoric activity. When planning, route length, elevation profile and season are important distinguishing factors: the visitor path in Snowdrop Valley is seasonal, another route leads from Cutcombe to Brockwell, and a stony path reaches the summit of Dunkery Beacon.

Walking Routes and Seasonal Planning

The shorter visitor path in Snowdrop Valley leads about a mile downhill to the valley; the return route climbs another mile uphill. That makes approximately two miles in total. Seasonal access is tied to the snowdrop flowering season in February. The remote, privately owned valley is in a hidden part of Exmoor near Wheddon Cross; Snowdrop Valley is closed in 2026. For future dates, check the latest event information. The main car park for Snowdrop Valley is the Cutcombe Cattle Market car park. Planning this route therefore also means accounting for the described climb back out of the valley.

The route from Cutcombe to Brockwell is four miles long and has a total ascent of 201 metres. It is therefore about twice as long as the Snowdrop route, which is approximately two miles. A 1.5-mile-long stony path leads to the summit of Dunkery Beacon. In clear weather, the Beacon offers 360-degree panoramic views of the Bristol Channel, Wales, Exmoor and Dartmoor. The path surface and the weather conditions for the view are two different aspects to consider when choosing your excursions.

Burial Mounds and Cultural Landscape

At Dunkery Beacon and the adjacent burial mounds, the barrow cemetery comprises four round barrows and one platform barrow. Together, these amount to five barrows in two named forms. The Kit Barrows Cairns comprise two prehistoric burial mounds on the broad summit of Dunkery Hill. They lie near a well-used footpath across Exmoor that passes close to the distinctive Dunkery Beacon.

Another prehistoric burial mound lies on the open moorland at Dunkery Hill, 850 metres northeast of Dunkery Bridge. From there, far-reaching views extend east to Croydon Hill and north to Minehead Bay. Each direction gives the views its own point of reference: Croydon Hill lies to the east, and Minehead Bay to the north.

Hoar Moor and Codsend Moors preserve an extensive prehistoric and historic landscape in the parishes of Exford and Cutcombe. Its traces include burial mounds and standing stones dating from the late third to early second millennium BC. The cultural history therefore extends beyond individual monuments: different archaeological forms are connected within a wide-ranging landscape. The burial mounds on Dunkery Hill and the moorland of Hoar Moor and Codsend Moors offer different scales at which to view the history of this area.

Discover more destinations: Lyng, Nether Stowey, Otterhampton, Cheddar, Baltonsborough, Bagborough, Lympsham, Wedmore

For the regional travel overview: Somerset.