Richard Jefferies and the River Barle – a seven mile walk from Tarr Steps

“The brown Barle River running over red rocks aslant its course is pushed aside, and races round curving slopes. The first shoot of the rapid is smooth and polished like a gem by the lapidary's art, rounded and smooth as a fragment of torso, and this convex undulation maintains a solid outline. Then the following scoop under is furrowed as if ploughed across, and the ridge of each furrow, where the particles move a little less swiftly than in the hollow of the groove, falls backwards as foam blown from a wave.”

 

Rarely has a river been so intensely realised in words as in “Summer in Somerset”, written by Richard Jefferies during his fortnight stay on Exmoor in 1882, but not published until after his death. It is no more than a fragment and much of it is devoted to a rhapsodic evocation of Exmoor’s most scenic river. It illustrates perfectly Jefferies’s method of pushing his nose flat against nature and itemising its detail, a technique which he unknowingly gifted to Henry Williamson, author of “Tarka the Otter”.

We started where Jefferies finished his walk; at Tarr Steps, up river from Dulverton. The ancient clapper bridge is one of Exmoor’s iconic landmarks, and arguments will always rage about its true antiquity. The past winter illustrated yet again how vulnerable the bridge is to the elements when in December 2012 a substantial length of the bridge was washed away by floods. West Somerset Council may be bankrupt but it found the money from somewhere to repair the damage promptly, to the relief of all who live off the tourist trade. Only Watersmeet near Lynmouth would challenge Tarr Steps as the most visited beauty spot on the Moor.

We parked the car in the National Trust car park above the steps for a reasonable fee of £2 for an all-day stay, and walked down to the river past the Tarr Farm hotel, of which more later.

 

 

We crossed the Steps to the western bank of the Barle and turned right into the bridleway which led steeply uphill towards Parsonage Farm. On our left we caught a glimpse of the roof of what used to be the Tarr Steps Hotel but is now a private house. Further up the track we could look back towards Ashway. It was the first day of the much-trailered heat wave and, as we walked through meadows thick with clover and flowers, ready to be mown, the flies clustered on our hats like grapes.

 

At the gate which led down into the yard of Parsonage Farm, we turned right and walked towards Westwater Farm across the top of the down, from which we had a panoramic view of the western moors. First came Withypool Hill.

Then the valley of the Barle topped by the sugarloaf of the stand of trees above Warren Farm which are visible from all points of the compass.

Finally, and much closer, stood Winsford Hill.

The heat thickened as we walked down the rough path towards Westwater. A suckler herd hid from the flies amongst the trees, and at the bottom a herd of sheep dozed in the shade.

 When we came into the lane below the farm, the collies that habitually lie in the entrance, and sometimes in the middle of the road itself, could hardly bother to rouse themselves to sniff us as we passed by and up the hill towards Greystone Gate.

 

The cattle grid is at the foot of the open common below Withypool Hill, but we kept on the road until it began to descend towards Withypool village itself.

Just above the village hall we turned right into the drive which leads to South Hill Farm. The bridleway used to pass through the yard, but there is now a right of way through the fields which brings one out between the house and the river. There is no bridge to take you to the path on the northern bank but a magnificent line of stepping stones.

 

For far too long the stones were blocked by a fallen tree, but eventually the Exmoor Park Authority cleared it away and the way is clear again as long as the river is not too high. Recently the weather had been comparatively dry. Sometimes one or two of the stones can be quite treacherous, and at others much of them are covered by the river.

We turned right towards Tarr Steps. It is said that Louis Armstrong never played the Ira Gershwin-Vernon Duke song “I can’t get started” after he heard Bunny Berigan’s awe-inspiring version. Similarly I leave our walk back to Tarr Steps to the words of Richard Jefferies and to my wife’s photographs.

 

“At the foot of the furrowed decline the current rises over a rock in a broad white sheet--white because as it is dashed to pieces the air mingles with it. After this furious haste the stream does but just overtake those bubbles which have been carried along on another division of the water flowing steadily but straight. Sometimes there are two streams like this between the same banks, sometimes three or even more, each running at a different rate, and each gliding above a floor differently inclined. The surface of each of these streams slopes in a separate direction, and though under the same light they reflect it at varying angles. The river is animated and alive, rushing here, gliding there, foaming yonder; its separate and yet component parallels striving together, and talking loudly in incomplete sentences.”

“Here is a pool by the bank under an ash--a deep green pool inclosed by massive rocks, which the stream has to brim over. The water is green--or is it the ferns, and the moss, and the oaks, and the pale ash reflected? This rock has a purple tint, dotted with moss spots almost black; the green water laps at the purple stone, and there is one place where a thin line of scarlet is visible, though I do not know what causes it. Another stone the spray does not touch has been dried to a bright white by the sun. Inclosed, the green water slowly swirls round till it finds crevices, and slips through. A few paces farther up there is a red rapid--reddened stones, and reddened growths beneath the water, a light that lets the red hues overcome the others--a wild rush of crowded waters rotating as they go, shrill voices calling. This next bend upwards dazzles the eyes, for every inclined surface and striving parallel, every swirl, and bubble, and eddy, and rush around a rock chances to reflect the sunlight. Not one long pathway of quiet sheen, such as stretches across a rippled lake, each wavelet throwing back its ray in just proportion, but a hundred separate mirrors vibrating, each inclined at a different angle, each casting a tremulous flash into the face.”

“The sky, which was not noticed before, now appears reaching in rich azure across the deep hollow, from the oaks on one side to the oaks on the other. These woods, which cover the steep and rocky walls of the gorge from river to summit, are filled with the June colour of oak. It is not green, nor russet, nor yellow; I think it may be called a glow of yellow under green. It is warmer than green; the glow is not on the outer leaves, but comes up beneath from the depth of the branches. The rush of the river soothes the mind, the broad descending surfaces of yellow-green oak carry the glance downwards from the blue over to the stream in the hollow. Rush! rush!--it is the river, like a mighty wind in the wood.”

 

“Every one has seen a row of stepping-stones across a shallow brook; now pile other stones on each of these, forming buttresses, and lay flat stones like unhewn planks from buttress to buttress, and you have the plan of this primitive bridge. It has a megalithic appearance, as if associated with the age of rude stone monuments. They say its origin is doubtful; there can be no doubt of the loveliness of the spot. The Barle comes with his natural rush and fierceness under the unhewn stone planking, then deepens, and there overhanging a black pool--for the shadow was so deep as to be black--grew a large bunch of marsh-marigolds in fullest flower, the broad golden cups almost resting on the black water. The bridge is not intended for wheels, and though it is as firm as the rock, foot passengers have to look at their steps, as the great planks, flecked with lichen at the edges, are not all level. The horned sheep and lambs go over it--where do they not go? Like goats they wander everywhere.”

Just above Tarr Steps there is a barrier strung across the river to prevent trees being carried down to the bridge by flood waters which would smash the ancient stones apart. Sadly, a few months ago, it proved completely inadequate.

“In a cottage some way up the hill we ate clotted cream and whortleberry jam. Through the open door came the ceaseless rush! rush! like a wind in the wood. The floor was of concrete, lime and sand; on the open hearth--pronounced 'airth'--sods of turf cut from the moor and oak branches were smouldering under the chimney crook. Turf smoke from the piled-up fires of winter had darkened the beams of the ceiling, but from that rude room there was a view of the river, and the hill, and the oaks in full June colour, which the rich would envy.”

 

When we first came here over thirty years ago, Tarr Farm had not changed much since Jefferies’s day. While our back was turned, however, the old farmhouse morphed into a luxury hotel, with a celebrated restaurant and a clientele in season of corporate tweedy shooters from the City. You can still enjoy an excellent cream tea in the garden above the river, from as early as eleven o’clock in the morning indeed. The price of £5.50 is at the top end of the range, as one would expect in so popular a spot, but look at the size of it. 

 

Three scones lay on each plate like golden hubcaps. Two of them went straight into the backpack for another day, and then we enjoyed the others in the company of a couple of chaffinches, a breed which seems particularly keen on scones. It wasn’t whortleberry jam but, judging by a pot which we bought once made from Exmoor’s signature berry, we weren’t missing much.