Barna Barrow Car Park - EX35 6NE Barna Barrow Car Park
Moderate - Footpaths, tracks, tarmac, some ascent and descent.
A high walk with spectacular views over the Bristol Channel in several directions, and three small hills that between them mimic breathtaking mountain scenery. A whistle-stop tour of human activity through several millennia is included en route!
It was originally thought that the six mounds which had been spotted in this area from aerial photographs of Countisbury Hill were Bronze Age barrows, but subsequent field exploration revealed no traces of these, leading archaeologists to draw the conclusion that the name barrow probably came from the shape of Barna Barrow, rather than from any function as a burial site.
There is a Bronze Age bowl barrow, however, between Barna Barrow and Countisbury Common, beside the A39 and marked on the map as a mound (see point 7, below). There is another on the side of Kipscombe Hill, about a mile to the east and marked on the map as a tumulus. There are standing stones there, too, but these are thought to be much more recent.
Bowl barrows were burial mounds, usually formed of earth, but sometimes stones were used to cover the remains instead. These latter mounds are known as cairns (although many cairns in the landscape are simply piles of stones marking a location, usually a summit or a hill-path). The word cairn comes from the Celtic word 'carn', meaning heap of stones.
Bronze Age remains have been found by archaeologists elsewhere on the north western edge of Exmoor, dating back to somewhere around 1200 BC, at Chapman Barrows and Holworthy Farm, both near Parracombe; and there are cairns and barrows of this period further east along the coastline (see the Selworthy Beacon Walk).
The coastal heathland up here is home to a number of interesting species of birds. Look out for buzzards, ravens, stonechats, wheatears.
There are extensive remains of mediaeval field systems all over this area, too. In 1086, the Domesday Book showed Countisbury to be a much larger settlement than it is now, the 11th century population being as many as 75, and the land would have been put to good use in supporting the population.
Along the summit of Foreland Point, however, is a group of four enclosures thought to be prehistoric. Evidence of Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age, 8000–4000 BC) and Neolithic (New Stone Age, 4000–1500 BC) activity has been found all over the moor, including a Mesolithic flint-working site at Hawkcombe (see the Worthy Wood Walk). The Neolithic period marks the start of the change of lifestyle from hunter-gatherers to farmers, so these enclosures may have been among the first fields to have been instated in Britain.
Elsewhere in the Countisbury area there are Iron Age monuments (see the Two Cleaves Walk, and the Wester Wood Walk). Along the Coast Path towards Lynmouth, to the south west of this walk, are the remains of a particularly noteworthy Iron Age hillfort, with massive ramparts extending all the way up Wind Hill (see the Wester Wood Walk). There are plans to develop this further as an important heritage site.
The area beyond is Kipscombe Enclosure, while above is Kipscombe Farm, a 17th century farmhouse built on the site of an earlier settlement, suspected to be pre-Conquest, although the earliest written mention of it was in 1249.
The 13th century Blue Ball Inn at Countisbury.
There a few buses a day between Lynmouth and Minehead via Porlock, and stops at the Blue Ball Inn (formerly the Sandpiper Inn), about a quarter of a mile to the west of the start and linked to it by a footpath running beside Countisbury church directly to the second point on the walk. For timetable information, zoom in on the interactive map and click on the bus stops, visit Traveline or phone 0871 200 22 33.
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