Above the Horner Woods woods, on the edge of a rounded hill known as Cloutsham Ball, stands Cloutsham Farm (SS8943), built by the Aclands in the style of a Swiss chalet.
Cloutsham was once a hunting lodge and now a working farm. It across to Cloutsham Ball, a hill below the Dunkery Beacon, and to Cloutsham Woods. This area of the Holnicote Estate was planted with trees in the 18th and 19th century, and today the woodland provides a popular picnic spot. Look here for more than a hundred ancient oak pollards and a few remaining ancient ash trees too.
The moorland behind this hill conceals the hamlet of Stoke Pero, where you will find a tiny Xllth century church, the highest on Exmoor at about 350 metres above sea level.
Cloutsham Farm
Cloutsham Farm
View from Cloutsham Farm on a low cloud day
Cloutsham is a working farm on the National Trust's Holnicote Estate. It was a hunting lodge of the Acland family, designed in the ornate rustic style popular on estates in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It looks over Cloutsham Woods to the northern slopes of Dunkery Hill, and the meadows near a ford in the woods are popular for picnics. The nearest parking is at Webber's Post to the east or Stoke Ridge to the west and the road through the valley is narrow, winding and precipitous.
OS Grid Reference: SS8943 |
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