The Valley of Rocks, sometimes called Valley of the Rocks, is a

dry valley A dry valley may develop on many kinds of permeable rock, such as limestone and chalk, or sandy terrains that do not regularly sustain surface water flow. Such valleys do not hold surface water because it sinks into the permeable bedrock. There ...

that runs parallel to the coast in north

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 ...

, England, about to the west of the village of Lynton. It is a popular tourist destination, noted for its herd of feral goats, and for its landscape and geology.

Geology and landscape

The valley has good exposures of the Lynton Beds (formally the ' Lynton Formation') that are among the oldest

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

rocks in north Devon and are highly fossiliferous. Also of note are the

periglacial Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", also referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and ot ...

features formed when this area was at the limit of glaciation during the last Ice Age. The valley is believed to owe its existence to the dissection by coastal cliff recession of a former extension of the valley of the

East Lyn River The East Lyn is a river which rises high in Exmoor, in the English county of Somerset. It flows through the East Lyn Valley in Devon. Watercourse The river is formed as the Upper East Lyn at Malmsmead from two minor tributaries, the Oare W ...

which now meets the sea at

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 ...

Archaeology

In 1793 the Reverend Richard Polwhele wrote "The Valley of Stones ..is so awfully magnificent that we need not hesitate in pronouncing it to have been the favourite residence of Druidism." and seventeen years later,

topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

George Alexander Cooke noted "The central part of the valley contains several circles of stone, above forty feet in diameter, most probably Druidical remains", but by 1854 local landowner Charles Bailey was deploring the quarrying and building of stone walls and fences that had, of late, been disfiguring the valley, lamenting "...worse than either, the removal of immense Druidical stones and circles which formed its peculiar and striking interest, for the purpose of selling them for gateposts. By 1917, this work of despoliation had progressed to such a degree that John Presland was not greatly impressed by what remained, noting

...the Valley of Rocks, about which so much has been written... omparing it with..the scene of some titanic conflict... Any walker who goes with this in mind must, I think, be disappointed; the place is wild enough... There are hut circles of the
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
age in the valley, though many of them have been destroyed by the people who live around, to build the walls of their own cottages; but the oft-repeated fantasy of this valley as the haunt of Druid rites seems to me, not only unsupported by evidence, but without justification, in the formation of the valley or the wilderness of the rocks.

A study carried out in 2022 records the remains of the following as present in the area: a hut circle settlement and field system of uncertain age (Late Prehistoric - 4000 BCE? to 42 CE?), a Bronze Age burial cairn datable to the period 2500 BCE to 701 BCE and a clearance cairn of unknown date. The valley retains some of its original character and presents an appropriately grand natural setting for open-air theatre, but the addition to it of a cricket pitch and, more recently, a car park have robbed the area between the landward and seaward walls of crags of some of the wildness it once possessed.

Literary and musical connections

In late 1797,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

and

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

visited the valley together and decided to write a prose tale called "The Wanderings of Cain" set there, though it was never completed. The poet Robert Southey was a visitor in August 1799, and was impressed, describing it as "covered with huge stones … the very bones and skeletons of the earth; rock reeling upon rock, stone piled upon stone, a huge terrific mass". In her poetical illustration to an engraving of a painting by

Thomas Allom Thomas Allom (13 March 1804 – 21 October 1872) was an English architect, artist, and topographical illustrator. He was a founding member of what became the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He designed many buildings in London, in ...

, Letitia Elizabeth Landon views the place as suitable for the unhappy, but, as she puts it "Gloomy vale! if thou couldst be haunt for human misery, half our life were spent with thee". (Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1832) Later,

R. D. Blackmore Richard Doddridge Blackmore (7 June 1825 – 20 January 1900), known as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. He won acclaim for vivid descriptions and personification of the ...

set part of his novel ''

Lorna Doone ''Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor'' is a novel by English author Richard Doddridge Blackmore, published in 1869. It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly ar ...

'' (first published in 1869) in the valley. A visit to the area in 1974 by the Australian composer

Miriam Hyde Miriam Beatrice Hyde (15 January 191311 January 2005) was an Australian composer, classical pianist, music educator, and poet. She composed over 150 works for piano, 50 songs, other instrumental and orchestral works and performed as a concert ...

with her husband led to her writing the piano piece ''

Valley of Rocks The Valley of Rocks, sometimes called Valley of the Rocks, is a dry valley that runs parallel to the coast in north Devon, England, about to the west of the village of Lynton. It is a popular tourist destination, noted for its herd of feral ...

'' in 1975, which became her best-known composition. A shelter built in the 1920s and previously known as "Model Gate" was restored in the 1970s and is now known as Poet's Shelter.

Present use

There is a cricket ground which hosts the Lynton & Lynmouth Cricket Club, founded in August 1876. Open-air theatre productions have taken place in the summer since 2016.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Lynton & Lynmouth Cricket Club
Valleys of Devon Geology of Devon Tourist attractions in Devon Bristol Channel Lynton and Lynmouth