Last visit: June 2026

On this journey I've experienced pubs that serve an area, and others that have become part of the landscape.

The Rockford Inn belongs to Exmoor.

If you've stood on the A39 above Countisbury and looked down into the East Lyn valley, you'll know the view. A vast sweep of woodland tumbles away beneath you, folding into secretive, hidden valleys and steep-sided combes. The trees seem to swallow everything. It appears inconceivable that a pub could exist down there at all.

Yet tucked beside the river, hidden among the folds of the landscape, sits one of Exmoor's most cherished inns.

I first discovered the Rockford many years ago during a winter walk in search of red deer. Starting high on Brendon Common in the teeth of a gale, I followed a path down from the exposed moor into an unfamiliar wooded valley. Eventually I emerged beside a whitewashed inn standing next to the East Lyn.

Outside, the river rushed through the gorge.

Inside, log fires glowed in several rooms, local ales in casks behind the bar told me I'd struck gold, and the smell of the Sunday roast drifted through the building.

It felt like finding shelter in another world.

That feeling has never really left me.

Over the years I found reasons to return, despite living hours away. Exmoor has many wonderful pubs, but the Rockford possesses something harder to define. Perhaps it's the remoteness. Perhaps it's the setting. Perhaps it's the sense that the building and the landscape have grown together over centuries.

When the pub closed in 2025, I was genuinely saddened.

Places like this are fragile. Their greatest strength—their isolation—is often their greatest challenge. Deep in the valley, far from passing trade and surrounded by woodland, the Rockford survives because people make a conscious decision to seek it out.

Thankfully, new owners Pete and Jess stepped forward and gave the inn a new future.

Returning after the reopening felt less like visiting a business and more like checking on an old friend. The fires were lit. The beer was flowing. Walkers once again arrived with muddy boots and stories from the moor. This valley felt complete again.

That might sound overly sentimental for a pub.

Then again, spend an afternoon here and you may find yourself feeling exactly the same.

Because The Rockford Inn has a curious effect on people. Simply by visiting, you seem to develop an informal stake in its future. You want it to succeed. You want it to thrive. You want future walkers descending through the East Lyn valley to experience the same sense of discovery. You want people to know about it and visit.

Perhaps that's because the inn represents something larger than itself.

To me it embodies the Exmoor celebrated by Hope Bourne: a landscape of moorland, rivers, woodland, weather, community and quiet resilience. A place where the journey still matters, where geography still shapes daily life and where a pub remains far more than somewhere to buy a drink.

There are grander inns and more fashionable destinations.

But few places capture the spirit of Exmoor so completely.

If you want to understand why people fall in love with this landscape and keep returning throughout their lives, start here.

Like me, even as a June heatwave grips the UK, you may still find yourself quietly hoping to get snowed in.