[11] Porlock has an electoral ward called 'Porlock and District' which stretches westwards to the Devon boundary, eastwards to Minehead and south to Wootton Courtenay.

[12] It is also part of the Tiverton and Minehead county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The village adjoins the Porlock Ridge and Saltmarsh nature reserve, created from the lowland behind a high shingle embankment which was breached by the sea in the 1990s, which has now been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

A stream flows down a wooded combe called Hawkcombe leads about three miles (5 km) from the village up to high open moorland.

The South West Coast Path goes through Porlock, many walkers stopping rather than continuing the long walk to Lynton.

The area was several miles inland until the sea level in the Bristol Channel rose about 7000 to 8000 years ago.

[17] In 1797, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived nearby at Nether Stowey (between Bridgwater and Minehead), but — due to illness — had "retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Lynton",[18] was interrupted during composition of his poem Kubla Khan by "a person on business from Porlock", and claimed he found afterwards he could not remember what had come to him in a dream.

Coleridge and William Wordsworth (who lived nearby at Alfoxden) would often roam the hills and coast on long night walks, leading to local gossip that they were 'spies' for the French.

Legend has it that the area beyond Culbone towards Lynmouth where Glenthorne is now situated is where Jesus may have alighted on a trip with Joseph of Arimathea.

This is said to have inspired a passage from William Blake's famous poem, Milton: And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green?

In Iris Murdoch's "Bruno's Dream", Miles admonishes Diana for porlocking while he is trying to receive poetic inspiration.