Anyone here done or doing it and can tell me a bit about it?
I don’t need to know about the riding – I know its great 🙂

We are looking to relocate (the family) there, so it’ll have to be close to Minehead for the kids (school) and for Mrs STS social life, activities, shops etc. I’ll be quite happy in my man cave just venturing out for rides and sailing.

I know Minehead itself isn’t the best, but we won’t be living right in it and wanted to see what people think of living around there.

Thanks

I work around there. I understand that the towns/villages around Minehead (Williton, Watchet, etc.)are very nice and very expensive. Smashing riding though.

Yeah we’ll be looking just outside Minehead, like Dunster. More expensive but we are coming from the south east so…

I live about 40 miles away & ride that area regularly -I used to go out in Minehead a bit when my sister used to live there a few years ago.
It suffered a bit from ‘small town syndrome’ in winter & gets roudy when the Butlins does adlut/stag/hen weekends – also any 20 minute journeys this time of year can take an hour during the summer holidays, but generally a nice place to live.

The advantage of the Butlins ‘resort’ is that the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival comes to town!

There’s also an astoundingly good butcher. Best I’ve ever seen.

Hugely underrated trail network.

My wife is from around that way. We actually got married at Curdon Mill which is just the other side of Williton towards Stogumber.

Riding and countryside is lovely obviously. West Somerset as a whole is pretty underrated.

Watchet is nice in summer and good if you have a boat. but can be a tad grim in the winter. Dunster is nice to visit but personally I always find it a bit twee, chocolate boxy and soulless. Suffers badly from secondhomeitis.

People locally seem to get a bit snobby about Minehead but I reckon it’s quite nice and as above has all the day to day shops and facilities you’d need. If the budget will stretch there are some lovely properties on North Hill with great riding straight from the door.

I’d also consider Porlock. Quite a thriving little village in a lovely location with pretty good facilities and a couple of decent pubs.

Also worth looking a bit further inland. Monksilver is lovely and used to have a cracking pub called the Notley. Sadly closed a few years back but has recently re-opened and seems to be getting pretty good reviews. Some nice spots out towards the Quantocks as well but careful you don’t end up in the catchment area for Bridgey!

Wife’s family live in Wiveliscombe which is in the Brendon Hills a bit closer in to Taunton. Probably a bit outside your search area but really nice community, handy for both Exmoor and the Quantocks.

thanks guys.

Yeah Newquay turns to a ghost town in winter and is manic in the summer. Working in the tourist trade will help as you’ll want them there, otherwise I can see they’ll utterly piss you off. We’ll want them there 🙂

Heading down there next week and it’ll be interesting to see what its like as I’m usually there in the summer(ish) months.

Local.

Porlock has suffered from outsiders buying up houses and pushing prices up beyond local wages. Very nice though, you will be subjected to a large bunch of drunks on clunker death traps once a year. Also Miles Tea still have there coffee roasting part of the business in Porlock, smells nice 🙂

Williton, bit meh, quiet, big school, most just pass through, Five Bells area very nice with some stunning views.
Watchet, hmmm parts are quite nice, can be bleak in winter, wouldn’t move there myself. Train station (private line no mains service) and harbour are main draws. Dirty great paper mill with large volumes of HGV traffic, most locals give the trucks a wide berth on the roads as they aren’t always the best of drivers. Lot of mill traffic used to go through the docks when it was open for commerical use. Now posh marina, harbour does suffer bad silting up.
You may hear the legend of Fat Janet, now R.I.P. she used to service the visiting ships crews if you know what i mean……she came in the pub one night with a massive wedge of bank notes, had taken care of a russian cargo ship crew…. bless her, she didn’t know roubles where a dead currency outside of Russia and worthless in the western world.
Not sure if HTV have ever gone back, they vowed not too after filming a news broadcast and leaving the van unattended…. locals decided it would be great fun to empty the dog poo bins and pelt the broadcast van with the big dish on…..

Dunster, very nice, Dunster by candle light is a big tourist event, so if you are near the main streets expect to have lots of people peering through your windows and wandering about. Also suffers from outside elements pushing up house prices and then complaining about the church bells and chimes being noisy and trying to have them shut down….. Nice long history for the village, bits of the castle date to 950ad, lots of listed buildings which need pricey upkeep.

Minehead, North hill is the posher part, i nearly married my way into Elgin Tower 🙂 (mock castle overlooks the town) Butlins is a curse but keeps the town afloat, i live near to the town center, weekend drunks fighting and breaking things very common, Butlins now have a policy of if happy campers get bought back to camp by Police they will also be slung off camp, Young Farmers had a function there once….then there was the golf club battle between the gypsys and chinese….etc etc etc, Butlins can be lively. Not as lively as it used to be, which is a good thing.
Towns not as nice as it used to be, although you could say that about everywhere these days. Woodcombe and Hoppcott areas are very nice, outer fringes of Alcombe very nice too, North Hill and lower slopes, the Parks also nice. Living close to the center can be hit and miss.
Quiet in winter, can be hectic in summer, also expect rude early awakings around May as the Hobby Horse comes out to play, pagan goings on.
Nice long open beaches, a fatbike won’t be required but could be used as an excuse to get one. Sea Water is murky at best, get down to Porlock Weir and the quality is much much better.
Great days out on the Balmoral and the paddle steamer Waverly which do summer trips down the coast to Lundy island, or a shopping day over to Cardiff or vist flat holm/steep holm.
Don’t buy one of the flats on the seafront next to Butlins, getting to the age where the iffy building practice’s are coming undone, they look nice and some have excellent views, but not cheap, and service charges.

Lots of helecopter traffic, Augusta Westlands based in Yeovil along with the Fleet Air arm, 40 commando near Taunton and Kilve beach is a target range, big floating target out at sea, you can here chainsaw like rasp of chain guns in Minehead, bombing runs are done with inert practice bombs or laser targeting so no real earth moving noise.

You already know about the riding, stacks of it, MBR mag have a couple of route maps every year around the area.
Also lots of DH fun, discrete shuttle service on the Quantocks, and 2 others operate around Minehead, so if you get the urge for dressing like a stormtrooper and hitting trees then loads of action.
Also shout out for Coombe Sydnham country park, the BDS are using it again as a venue, well worth a vist, think the race is mid April, be like a mini world cup with several big teams competing.

The Williton to Bridgewater road is truly awfull when you get stuck behind an HGV. Terrible on Butlins changeover days.
The Williton to Taunton road is much better, also has low railway bridges which forces a lot of HGV traffic onto the Bridgy road.

Lots of places to look in the area, finding a bargin may be hard, although if your a cash buyer, ask around for repo house’s, quite a few which get snapped up quickly.
Overall it’s a nice fairly quiet area, which is why so many people are trying to buy into the area.

🙂

We stopped at The Rest And Be thankful Inn in Wheddon Cross recently on a biking (and a little drinking) weekend. Bloody brilliant. Love the area….have been sorely tempted to move there for sometime now….. Go for it.

Wiveliscombe which is in the Brendon Hills

Really??? someone must have moved it then 🙄

Porlock is a great place to be, but don’t expect to be accepted immediately, you’ll have to give it a couple of generations or so 🙂

Wheddon Cross,

Very nice area, also Luckwell bridge down the road, close to Dunkery Beacon.
A few miles from Wheddon Cross, head to Taunton on the top road, underneath the big comms tower is Lype farm, home of Kustom bikes little showroom. More DH focused shop.

The kids will love the cross…..any whiff of snow and it can get hit hard up there, nothing in Minehead but the Cross can be under feet of snow 🙂 Down from the pub is a small village shop/garage/petrol station, across the road the cattle market and ATV sales, very rural and farming area. Maybe factor in a small 4wd car for Mrs Singletracksurfer or invest in snow chains and learn how to use them.

Wiveliscombe which is in the Brendon Hills
Really??? someone must have moved it then

Eh? What’s your point caller?

Would “at the foot of the Brendon Hills” meet your pedantry requirements sir?

don’t end up in the catchment area for Bridgey!

Which has 2 secondary school I’d happily send my kids too (having worked in one of them) and a highly-rated college.

Sorry. Was a stupid throwaway remark based on the fact the OP wanted kids to go to school in Minehead.. No disrespect intended to Bridgewater which I know gets an unfair rap.

Crowcombe!

wow thanks acehtn. I feel like a local already now and as I visit most years I may be able to fool the locals into thinking I am/was just a hermit 😉

Good to hear Coombe sydenham is back on the map and useful to hear about all the villages round. I like Wheddon Cross and Porlock, but think they’re too far out for us. Alcombe and North Hill sound and look good. Off to see some places this weekend…

Anyone know what the schools are like in Minehead?
I’ve got 2 young boys. Neither like school and my wife is a teacher 😯

Schools in Minehead, couple of primarys Minehead first school and a secondary down the road, Townsend road(called the middle school, across the road from the police station) Also small school up watery lane.
Watchet and Williton have primarys and both merge into Danesfield in Williton secondary school, then the bulk of the west somerset catchment area go into the West Somerset Community in Minehead.
And the West Somerset Community College, bit more than just a school nowdays. Still has a farm unit, they sold the land of the old one, now a building site close to the College, instead of owning a unit they now lease land and have put flash new units up.
Farm unit used to be ace fun, potato&spade cricket, grease gun hi-jinks, wheelie the tractor was always a good un, hi revs drop the clutch whehey up comes the front, oh and de-nutting sheeps and de-horning cattle, proberly more serious and health and safety risk asessed these days 🙂

Further education Possible jobs for Mrs, main draws are Bridgewater College, and in Taunton theres SCAT think it’s Somerset College of Arts and Technology.
You would have to check performance tables for schools, WSCC has a new head, bit flash and showy (fake pranching horse italian sports car thing, dressed up Pug 🙂 ) would appear to be some issues there, nothing that bringing back caning wouldn’t sort out 🙂
There is a private school near the top of Parkhouse road, inmates sorry pupils… are under care orders or stopping off before prison, a challenging place to work. Generally has a bad rep around the town, used to be called Periton Meade then 24/7 think it’s changed name again.

Wooten courtney and Timberscombe are very nice, both very horsey, may be pricey. Roadwater’s nice, little shop and pub, quiet village, i think Blue Anchor area and Cleeve are pricey, the chalet sheds at chapel cleeve go for well over 100k, might be 150ish, the small chalet sheds on Dunster beach sometimes change hands…. know someone who bought one 2 years ago, sure she paid 120k for it ! wish i had bought 2 back in the 1990’s when they where about 15k would be minted now if i sold them.

Only the high ground and down Dulverton area that can suffer from snow, we rarely see it in Minehead, if we get snow in town the high villages will be cut off for a day or too 🙂

Oh avoid whats called seaward way, as you enter Minehead hit the big roundabout and turn right to the seafront, big estate on the left, then the new hospital and Tesco. The estate is built on marsh land, very few house’s have had extras added on because you have to do a large amount of foundation work to stop things sinking.

Thanks again.

Plenty of work to keep Mrs STS busy then, but ‘cor blimey, we won’t be buying any beach sheds 😯

Hi
As we are interested in moving to the Minehead area, possibly North ‘
Hills or Woodcomb area, I’m wondering if you’ve made the move, where and what do you think?