Cornwall is overrated. Head for Somerset instead

Telegraph

11-05-2025

As a Bentley is to a Rolls-Royce, so Somerset is to Devon and Cornwall – less flashy but just as good.
Somerset is the county you pass through on the way to a holiday in Devon and Cornwall and yet this overlooked part of the West Country is a worthy destination in its own right.
For those in search of the seaside, Somerset has plenty to offer. Weston-Super-Mare is the largest resort on England's west coast south of Lancashire, with three miles of sandy beach and a huge pier offering all kinds of amusements, while extending seven miles south to Burnham-on-Sea is the longest unbroken stretch of golden sands in Europe.
To the north, the dignified resort town of Clevedon sports a graceful Victorian pier described by Sir John Betjeman as 'the most beautiful pier in England', while early 14th-century Clevedon Court is amongst the National Trust's oldest properties.
Clevedon's Curzon Cinema opened in 1912 and is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas in the world.
To the south, the picturesque village of Dunster offers an octagonal 17th-century yarn market, streets lined with rose-covered thatched cottages, a dovecote, watermill, medieval tithe barn and packhorse bridge, all watched over by a Norman castle on a high hill – oh, and a beach.
Minehead is a mix of sandy beach, quaint fishing village and traditional seaside fun – including the largest of Britain's three Butlin's holiday parks and the West Somerset heritage steam railway.
The starting point for England's longest National Trail, the South West Coast Path, which runs along the coast for 630 miles to Poole in Dorset, Minehead is the Gateway to Exmoor, where steep cliffs, riven by deep ravines and strung with waterfalls, bring the Somerset coastline to a dramatic conclusion.
Exmoor itself is a world of purple heather and yellow gorse, rounded hills, deep valleys, dark woods and exquisitely pretty villages. Not two miles from the sea yet surrounded by wild and rugged moorland, romantic St Mary's in Oare, brings Lorna Doone alive, for here in this church she married John Ridd and was shot by the villainous Carver Doone.
Deep in the middle of the moor, stretching across the River Barle near Withypool, is Tarr Steps, a clapper bridge 164ft (50m) long and dating back to the Bronze Age, the longest and oldest bridge of its kind in Britain.
Away from the candy floss, Somerset offers history, culture and sophistication too.
Bath, often described as Britain's most beautiful city, needs no introduction and shares a bishopric with a less-known but equally delightful town.
Wells is England's smallest city, its Early English cathedral a building of incomparable beauty. The cathedral's west front, completed in 1280, is the finest gallery of medieval sculpture in the country, a display of 300 mostly life-size statues set in individual niches.
The chapter house is the only one in Britain built above an undercroft and climbing up to it is the loveliest staircase in the world, a set of time-worn stone steps that curl and cascade down from the doorway like a tide.
Just north of the cathedral lies Europe's oldest residential street, Vicar's Close, laid out in the 14th century and lined with houses built to accommodate the men of the cathedral choir, their chimneys made uncommonly tall so that the smoke wouldn't affect their voices.
The wells after which the city is named can be found in the grounds of the moated Bishop's Palace, built in 1210 and one of the few left in England still lived in by a bishop. The mute swans living on the moat are trained to pull on a bell rope attached to the side of the gatehouse to ring for food, a skill passed down through the generations.
A few miles south of Wells on the mysterious Somerset Levels lies Glastonbury, cradle of English Christianity and burial place of King Arthur. In the 1st century AD Joseph of Arimathea, who took Jesus down from the Cross, came to Glastonbury with the Holy Grail, which he is said to have buried beneath Glastonbury Tor.
He then built England's first church to watch over it on flat land to the west. Some 700 years later an abbey was built on the site which grew rich from pilgrims before it was demolished at the Dissolution in 1539. The impressive remains give an indication of how vast the abbey church was and include a 14th-century Abbot's Kitchen.
Glastonbury, once an island, lays claim to being the Isle of Avalon where King Arthur was brought to die after defeating Mordred in battle, and in 1191 the monks somewhat fortuitously found a great oak coffin buried beneath the abbey's Lady Chapel bearing the words 'Here lies interred in the Isle of Avalon the renowned King Arthur'.
A plaque now marks the spot where Arthur waits patiently, ready to ride out and rescue his people when peril threatens. A few miles south east the hill-fort of Cadbury Camp is said to be the site of Arthur's legendary palace of Camelot.
Today Glastonbury is better known as the home of Britain's biggest music festival, while in winter birdwatchers flock to see the sunset starling murmurations at the RSPB's Ham Wall just outside the town.
Laid across the wetlands of the Somerset Levels to the west of Glastonbury is the Sweet Track, a wooden causeway constructed about 3800 BC, possibly the oldest surviving road in the world.
To the south is Sedgemoor, site of the last pitched battle fought on English soil, between the armies of King James II and the Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II, in July 1685.
Beyond is the Isle of Athelney, where in 878 AD King Alfred the Great sought refuge in a farmer's cottage. Instructed by the farmer's wife to watch her cakes while they were baking in the oven, he pondered instead on how to defeat the Danes and let them burn. He was royally scolded.
Rising out of the Levels to the north are the Mendips, a range of limestone hills cleft by England's deepest gorge, the 500-foot-deep Cheddar Gorge, home 9,000 years ago to England's oldest known inhabitant, Cheddar Man. A mere 800 years ago a milkmaid accidentally discovered that the unique conditions of the caves under the gorge were perfect for making cheese when she went back to collect a pail of milk she had left in a cave and forgotten about. Henry II declared cheddar to be the 'best cheese in Britain' and the name of Cheddar has since spread around the world. Somerset is also known for its creamy brie.
The sandstone Quantock Hills to the south of the Somerset Levels were designated in 1956 as England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Long before, in 1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge settled in the Quantocks with his new wife, in a cottage at Nether Stowey and began his golden age of poetry stirred by the evocative Somerset landscapes.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was inspired by a visit to the coastal town of Watchet, while Kubla Khan was written after a bracing walk from the 17th-century harbour at Porlock Weir to England's smallest and most isolated medieval church at Culbone, set in a deep green dell between Exmoor and the sea.
Somerset. Sheer poetry – and a worthy alternative to both Cornwall and Devon.