Watersmeet

Watersmeet is where the East Lyn River and Hoar Oak Water meet in a wooded Exmoor gorge, a mile and a half inland from Lynmouth. Watersmeet House, built in 1832 as a fishing and hunting lodge for Walter Stevenson Halliday, has served cream teas since the early 1900s and is now the National Trust tea-garden at the heart of 2,000 acres of sessile oak woodland and coast. Waymarked walks lead upstream to Ash Bridge, with a chance of otters, or up to the Iron Age fort at Countisbury; dogs are welcome almost everywhere. Reviewers love the cascades and the tea-garden, and recommend the riverside walk in from Lynmouth over the road. Tips from regulars: the roadside car park above the house is not Trust-run and takes coins only, the path down is steep and no good for prams or wheelchairs, and the bridleway from Combe Park at Hillsford Bridge is currently closed.