A car-free weekend in Crewkerne

Crewkerne has its own station on the West of England main line, the route South Western Railway runs between London Waterloo and Exeter St Davids. Trains go through most of the day and the journey from Waterloo takes somewhere between two and a half and three hours, depending on which service you catch.

Getting from the station to us

The station is in Misterton, about a mile and a half from the pub. It is a walkable half hour, though the last stretch is uphill into the town, so plenty of guests take a taxi instead. If you are arriving with bags and want to eat that evening, let us know roughly when your train gets in when you book.

Friday and Saturday on foot

Everything in the town centre is within a few minutes’ walk: the market square and town hall, St Bartholomew’s church, the museum, the independent shops along Market Street and Church Street. Market day is Wednesday, and there is a farmers’ market on the third Saturday of the month.

The genuinely good bit is that the Liberty Trail passes through Misterton, so a national walking route starts a few minutes from the platform. You can walk a stage south towards Wayford, or north towards Ham Hill, and turn back or get collected when you have had enough. Hinton St George, a hamstone village with a thatched pub, is under four miles away and is a comfortable there-and-back on foot.

The coast, honestly

Crewkerne is in Somerset, and the Jurassic Coast is not on the doorstep. Lyme Regis, Charmouth and West Bay are all somewhere around half an hour by car. There are buses towards the coast, but they are infrequent and the timetables change, so check a current one rather than taking our word for it. Most car-free guests who want a beach day take a taxi one way, walk a stretch of the coast path, and taxi back. It is not a long fare and it works.

You can also use the railway itself for a day out. Both Yeovil and Exeter are on the same line, and Axminster, one stop towards Exeter, is the usual jumping-off point for Lyme Regis.

Back here

Coming back from a walk or a train without having to find a parking space is the main pleasure of doing it this way. The bar, the kitchen and the rooms are all in the same building, so an evening here needs no further planning than deciding what to drink.