Porlock Hill is a road west of

Porlock Porlock is a coastal village in Somerset, England, west of Minehead. At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 1,440. In 2017, Porlock had the highest percentage of elderly population in Britain, with over 40% being of pensionable ag ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. It is part of the A39, connecting Porlock to

Lynmouth Lynmouth is a village in Devon, England, on the northern edge of Exmoor. The village straddles the confluence of the West Lyn and East Lyn rivers, in a gorge below Lynton, which was the only place to expand to once Lynmouth became as built ...

and

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

and is the steepest A-road in the United Kingdom, approaching 1 in 4 (25%) in places. A parallel

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

is available which travels the same route at an easier gradient.

Route

The route climbs west of Porlock to the north fringes of

Exmoor Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simonsbath. ...

. It climbs in just under , the steepest

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gradi ...

on any A-road in the UK. At one point, there is a warning sign advising motorists of a gradient of 1 in 4 (25%). The road is part of the A39, a long-distance road across the north coast of Somerset and Cornwall, though it is not a main through route here. Porlock Hill is not recommended for caravans or HGVs, which are strongly advised to seek another route. Cyclists are advised to dismount. The road has two

escape lane A runaway truck ramp, runaway truck lane, escape lane, emergency escape ramp, or truck arrester bed is a traffic device that enables vehicles which are having braking problems to safely stop. It is typically a long, sand- or gravel-filled lane c ...

s along its descent, to handle runaway vehicles. Owing to its gradient, numerous accidents have occurred on Porlock Hill. The village's local museum has an archive of photographs documenting various incidents along it. In Porlock itself, burning brakes of vehicles that have just descended the hill can often be smelled.

History

There was no practical transport west of Porlock in the 18th century. In 1794, the poet

Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...

wrote that such a route was considered "the end of the world". In 1812, the local community was fined for not maintaining a good road, and builders were employed to construct a suitable route. The road opened in 1843 when a stagecoach travelled from

Lynton Lynton is a town on the Exmoor coast in the North Devon district in the county of Devon, England, approximately north-east of Barnstaple and west of Minehead, and close to the confluence of the West Lyn and East Lyn rivers. Governance Lynton ...

to Porlock successfully. Shortly after the road opened, a local landowner, Mr Blathwayt, decided to build a

further west at a more relaxed gradient of 1 in 14 (7%). The toll road was not successful initially as horse-pulled traffic could cope with Porlock Hill, but became popular owing to the increased popularity of the motor car. In 1899, a ten-ton lifeboat was launched from a storm in Lynmouth, but could not be put out to sea due to bad weather. Instead, it was hauled east by land, down Porlock Hill to the weir at Porlock, where it could be launched safely. In 1900, a rally driver became the first person to drive a motor car up Porlock Hill, winning a £50 bet in the process. The first motor coach managed to climb the hill successfully in 1916.

Events

Porlock Hill is popular with cyclists. In 2015, over a hundred racers competed for a £3,100 prize to cycle up the hill along the toll road, followed by a series of children's races and a general fun ride. It is listed as one of the 100 greatest cycling climbs in the UK.

References

Citations Sources * * * {{refend

External links

Porlock Hill Climb
– cycle race website
Video of a 1950s bus climbing Porlock Hill
Roads in Somerset Hills of Somerset

Route

History

Events

See also

References

External links