Culbone (also called Kitnor) is a hamlet consisting of little more than the parish church and a few houses, in the civil parish of Oare in the Exmoor National Park, Somerset, England. As there is no road access it is a two-mile walk from Porlock Weir, and some four miles from Porlock itself.
The village is situated in a sheltered spot, near the coast of Porlock Bay. The slopes behind the village rise to the height of 1,200 feet (366 m), over which a small stream falls down to the sea.[1]
The South West Coast Path goes through the village, parts of which were closed and diverted in February 2007 following landslips in the woods.[2] The woods around the village are home to the rare Sorbus vexans, a microspecies of self-cloning Sorbus trees which are only found in the coastal area between Culbone and Trentishoe in Devon. It is amongst the rarest trees in Britain.[3] Other Whitebeam and Rowan species found in the area include; Sorbus subcuneata, Sorbus ‘Taxon D’ and Sorbus aucuparia.[4]
- ^ "Culbone, Somerset". GENUKI. Retrieved 24 October 2007.
- ^ "Culbone Woods access restricted". Exmoor National Park. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2007.
- ^ "Britain's eleven rarest trees". UK Tree Council. Archived from the original on 31 July 2007. Retrieved 24 October 2007.
- ^ Chester, Michael; Robyn S. Cowan; Michael F. Fay; Tim C. G. Rich (July 2007). "Parentage of endemic Sorbus L. (Rosaceae) species in the British Isles: evidence from plastid DNA". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 154 (3): 291–304. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2007.00669.x.