The villages are connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, which works two cable-connected cars by gravity, using water tanks.

Lynmouth was described by Thomas Gainsborough, who honeymooned there with his bride Margaret Burr, as "the most delightful place for a landscape painter this country can boast".

[3] At 7:52 pm on 12 January 1899, the 1,900 ton three-masted ship Forrest Hall, carrying thirteen crew and five apprentices, was in trouble off Porlock Weir on the north Somerset coast, owing to a severe gale that had been blowing all day.

Jack Crocombe, the coxswain of the Louisa, proposed to take the boat by road to Porlock's sheltered harbour, 13 miles (21 km) around the coast, and launch it from there.

After they had crossed the 15 miles (24 km) of wild Exmoor paths, they had to descend the dangerous Porlock Hill, with horses and men pulling ropes to stall the descent.

Although cold, wet, hungry and exhausted, the crew rowed for over an hour in heavy seas to reach the stricken Forrest Hall and rescue the thirteen men and five apprentices with no casualties.

[1] [2] The feat was immortalised in C Walter Hodges' 1969 children's historical novel The Overland Launch, and was re-enacted 100 years after the event, in daylight, on today's much better roads.

On 15 and 16 August 1952, a storm of tropical intensity broke over South West England, depositing 229 millimetres (9.0 in) of rain within 24 hours on an already waterlogged Exmoor.

[6] The small group of houses on the bank of the East Lyn River called Middleham, between Lynmouth and Watersmeet, was destroyed and never rebuilt.

A memorial hall dedicated to the disaster is on the front toward the harbour; it contains photographs, newspaper reports and a scale model of the village, showing how it looked before the flood.

[8] The British technical modern rock band InMe make recurring references to the Lynton/Lynmouth area in their lyrical material.

Lead singer Dave McPherson also has a song entitled "Sunny Lynton" on his EP Crescent Summer Sessions and refers to Watersmeet in "Waltzing in a Supermarket" on I Don't Do Requests.

Like The Secret of Crickley Hall, part of the plot revolves around World War II child evacuees from London.