[1][2] The name Cleeve, first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Clive, comes from the dative singular form of the Old English word clif ('cliff, bank, steep hill').

[7] Old Cleeve was also near the route of the West Somerset Mineral Railway which ran from the ironstone mines in the Brendon Hills to the port of Watchet on the Bristol Channel.

[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 site contains two species of plant which are nationally rare in Great Britain, Nit-grass (Gastridium ventricosum) and Rough Marsh-mallow (Althaea hirsuta).

It provides an outstanding series of sections through the Early Jurassic Lower Lias, spanning the Hettangian and Pliensbachian Stages and named the "Lilstock Formation".

[14] Bridgwater Bay consists of large areas of mud flats, saltmarsh, sandflats and shingle ridges, some of which are vegetated.

[16] The parish church of St Andrew dates from the 12th century and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.

[17] The floor of the porch was cobbled with alabaster stones from the beach below the village and set in the shape of a heart during the 17th century.

[19] Cleeve Abbey in Washford village, is a medieval monastery founded in the late twelfth century as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order.

Subsequently, the status of the site declined and the abbey was used as farm buildings until the latter half of the nineteenth century when steps were taken to conserve the remains.

In the twentieth century Cleeve Abbey was taken into state care; it is now looked after by English Heritage and is open to the public.