Exmouth & the Exe Estuary

Stand on the seafront at Exmouth and look across the water, and you are standing at a threshold. To your left the wide mouth of the River Exe opens out, its low-tide mudflats shining and alive with birds. Behind the town rises a curious sixteen-sided house that looks like nothing else in Devon. And away to the east, the cliffs begin to glow a deep, warm red — the first red cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, running off toward Dorset. Here, at the mouth of the Exe, one great stretch of coast ends and another begins.

Say the river's name as a single crisp syllable — the Exe, EKS. Exmouth is one of Devon's oldest seaside resorts, grown up from the eighteenth century when sea-bathing first became fashionable, and it keeps its Georgian and Victorian air. The estuary before you is a drowned river valley, its broad mudflats and sandbanks laid bare at low tide — and it is a wildlife site of international importance. In winter especially, tens of thousands of birds gather here to feed. Above the town stands the town's great curiosity, A la Ronde, a unique sixteen-sided house built in the 1790s by two cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter, and famously filled inside with intricate decoration of shells and feathers; it belongs now to the National Trust. And just east of Exmouth, the coast changes colour entirely, for here begin the red Triassic sandstone cliffs that mark the start of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Here is what to look for. First, the estuary at low tide — those vast glistening mudflats and sandbanks, the richest of larders for wading birds. Second, the birds themselves, and this is a place to bring binoculars. Look for elegant black-and-white avocets sweeping their upturned bills through the shallows, for brent geese grazing the flats, and for black-tailed godwits and great flocks of other waders probing the mud. Third, up behind the town, the strange silhouette of A la Ronde, its sixteen sides and pointed roof unlike any ordinary house. Fourth, turn your eyes eastward to the cliffs, and mark how they burn red in the light — the opening chapter of the Jurassic Coast. And fifth, across the estuary mouth, the sand dunes of Dawlish Warren curving out into the channel, a haven for rare plants and yet more birds.

Let me tell you about that peculiar round house on the hill. In the 1790s two unmarried cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter, returned from a long grand tour of Europe and built themselves a home unlike any other. They gave it sixteen sides, arranging the rooms around a tall central hall, and then set about decorating the interior with astonishing patience — encrusting whole surfaces with seashells, feathers and cut paper in delicate, obsessive designs. It was a house made by two women entirely to their own vision, and it has survived, quirks and all, into the care of the nation. Standing above the estuary, it watches the same tides and the same birds that you do today.

A word of care at this crossing. The estuary is broad and busy, the tides run strongly across the mudflats, and the ferry that carries the Coast Path over the water keeps to set times — so plan your crossing rather than leaving it to chance.

For this is where the path takes to the water again. From Exmouth the South West Coast Path crosses the mouth of the Exe by ferry, linking the South Devon coast you have walked to the East Devon shore ahead, where the red cliffs of the Jurassic Coast begin their long procession. Take one last look over the estuary before you go — the shining mud, the wheeling flocks, and those first red cliffs kindling in the eastern light — and step across into a new stretch of the journey.

Walk safe.