Blue Anchor is a seaside village, in the parish of
Old Cleeve, close to
Carhampton in
Somerset
Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
, England. The village takes its name from a 17th-century inn;
the bay, Blue Anchor Bay, was previously known as Cleeve Bay.
The bay and inn were the subjects of a watercolour by
J. M. W. Turner in 1818, now in the Lady Lever Gallery,
Port Sunlight.
The village marks one end of the
Blue Anchor to Lilstock Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest along which the
Triassic
The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...
cliffs have geological interest for the variety of fossils. The coloured alabaster found in the cliffs gave rise to the name of the colour "Watchet Blue".
The village lies on the route of the
West Somerset Coast Path and
Celtic Way Exmoor Option.
Blue Anchor railway station is a
station on the
West Somerset Railway, a
heritage railway
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...
in Somerset. It is situated in the village and houses the museum of the
West Somerset Steam Railway Trust.
Within the village is the only example of an updraught brick
kiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...
known to have survived in Somerset. It was built around 1830, supplied by small vessels carrying limestone to the small culm landing,
and is now used as a garage. The kiln is thought to have been used until the 1870s when the large-scale production of bricks in
Bridgwater
Bridgwater is a historic market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. The town had a population of 41,276 at the 2021 census. Bridgwater is at the edge of the Somerset Levels, in level and well-wooded country. The town lies along both sid ...
rendered small brickyards uneconomic.
Marshwood farmhouse dates from the late 15th century and was originally a manor house or
grange. It has been designated by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...
as a Grade II*
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.
Coincidentally there is another Blue Anchor Inn directly north across the Bristol Channel in
East Aberthaw, The Vale of Glamorgan.
References
External links
{{Commons category-inline, Blue Anchor
Villages in West Somerset
Ports and harbours of Somerset
Populated coastal places in Somerset
Beaches of Somerset