Axmouth

A cluster of colour-was and thatch cottages and farmhouses make up this unspoilt little village, where not far to the east in 1839 about 800 millions tons of cliff fell into the sea leaving a six mile gash.

A stream, springing from a well that once provided the locals with their water, runs beside the main street and is bridged in places by large stone slabs.

There was an Anglo-Saxon settlement here in the 7th century, standing at the southern end of the Fosse Way, the great Roman road which bisected England from Lincoln to Devon.

The village lies at the foot of Hawkesdown Hill, where there are Iron and Bronze Age relics as well as a fortified earthwork built to guard the estuary.