Buzzard View

This literary soundwalk is an immersive audio experience of a walk that follows a stunning loop route around the National Trust’s Holnicote Estate in Somerset. The path passes through woodland, moorland and coast, over a beacon with panoramic views extending right over to Wales, and past buildings ancient and new. Along the way, the narration tells a tale of how this landscape has been transformed over time by humans and non-humans, and new ecological changes that give cause for hope.

This work has been designed to be listened to either as a virtual experience, or in situ, using headphones, at a sequence of listening points along the way. Images of the scenery around the route, a map, and directions for listening in situ, are all detailed below.

Credits: written, narrated and produced by Ellen Wiles. Sound recording by Ellie Williams. Sound editing and design by Nicholas Allan. Commissioned by The National Trust. Funded by Frugi. With special thanks to Chris Gibbs, Holly Purdy, and Owen and Gina Dyer.

Audio coming soon.

Images of the route

  • Selworthy churchyard – view across the valley

  • Selworthy wood

  • Bury Castle – Exmoor pony by outer wall

  • Wind and Weather hut

  • Bossington hill – view across to Porlock Weir and towards Lynmouth

  • Church Combe – view back down the path towards Allerford

  • Church Combe – bench with view across Bossington Bay and the salt marsh

  • Selworthy Beacon – moorland path, sea and Wales view in the distance

  • Selworthy Church

  • Beaver domain – Paddocks Wood enclosure at night

  • Beaver domain – Paddocks Wood enclosure, pond, daylight

  • Horner Farm – entrance sign

  • Tivington Farm and the Libra farm school

  • Periwinkle Cafe – Selworthy

  • Lynch Combe – path down towards the sea

  • Horner Wood – temperate rainforest

  • Belties grazing in Selworthy Combe

  • Belties from Hindon Farm up by Selworthy Beacon

  • Selworthy Beacon – summit

Illustrated route map

To navigate the route, I recommend an Ordnance Survey (OS) map. The OS app is particularly useful for helping to navigate on a phone while walking. The OS grid reference for the starting point at Selworthy is SS 91990 46794. Here is a link to the whole Buzzard View route on the OS app.

Soundwalk credits

Written and produced by Ellen Wiles. Sound recording by Ellie Williams. Sound editing and design by Nicholas Allan. Commissioned by The National Trust, Holnicote Estate. Funded by the Green Recovery Challenge Fund.

Feedback

If you have enjoyed this literary soundwalk, your feedback would be greatly appreciated so that I can work with the National Trust to develop this project further. Please fill in this short survey which should take no more than a couple of minutes.

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