Continuing his series which asks readers to name their Sites of Special Sentimental Interest, Martin Hesp has been to one of the most dramatic corners of Exmoor to meet a man who loves looking after it

FEW valley systems in the region are as deep and steep as the one that allows the waters of the East and West Lyn Rivers to escape the hills and reach the sea.

The valleys are a national treasure, both ecologically and scenically. The Victorians called this area "Little Switzerland".

The only flat thing here is the sea – all other elements within the panorama are on the perpendicular.

The poet Robert Southey used the same word – "serpentining perpendicularity" was the way in which he described the local roads.

So it's little wonder that one WMN reader has named the place a Site of Special Sentimental Interest (SSSI). Steve Proud is one of the National Trust wardens for the area and he says he still cannot believe his good fortune to be working in such a place each day.

Steve was born and brought up in an area of the UK that's perhaps less synonymous with natural beauty. His home town, Darlaston, does not have much in the way of wooded ravines – and if anyone were to call it Little Switzerland they'd probably be referring with cynicism to the disused coal mine slag heaps.

"I didn't grow up in this landscape but in the heart of the Black Country," smiles Steve as we set off on a four-mile walk around part of the East Lyn River. "Darlaston is basically what's left of the old industrial base of the West Midlands – we had some parks and fields, made up from the old coal mines.

"What I love about this walk – from Watersmeet up to Rockford – is that it's a walk not many people do," he explained one day last week when there were no other people in sight for miles. "A lot of people do the Watersmeet to Lynmouth walk – but I love the tranquillity here.

"It's a lovely meandering walk which follows the river – sometimes climbing up away from it, sometimes right next to it – I just love the tranquillity and the setting."

The trust's local handbook makes quite a song and dance about the environmental importance of the area: "The woodlands are of particular ecological interest, with birch, rowan and ash among the sessile oak, as well as a number of scarce trees including some species of whitebeam."

We found one of the rare whitebeams perched almost impossibly on a particularly jagged, rocky, corner – high above the river. "We call this Sorbers Rock," said Steve, pointing up at an outcrop of stone that has now been pinned to the hillside with large metal bolts to prevent it collapsing and taking away the footpath.

"And this is one of the rare trees – there are several species within this valley of whitebeam – they are Jurassic relics, left over from the last Ice Age, and they are of significant importance.

"They are very rare trees – you wouldn't find them in many valleys, at all, but in the Watersmeet valley there is a subspecies of this tree which is specific to the valley system – and a couple of hybrids as well.

"They are only found in a few places in Devon. They don't seem to last very long," says Steve, peering up at the tattered bark of the young tree. "Because they get this splitting and cracking throughout the stem they tend to fall over – which maybe part of the way they propagate."

The trust booklet on the area continues in ecological vain: "The flora is rich and varied with some unusual plants such as Irish spurge, Wilson's filmy fern, wood vetch, wood stichwort and nettle-leaved bellflower. Ferns and rare woodland mosses and lichens thrive in the moist and unpolluted atmosphere and the woods provide important cover for buzzard, redstart, pied flycatcher and wood warbler."

It is without doubt a unique kind of place. Apart from the roar of the river, you can hear nothing but the occasional mewing of a buzzard – there's no traffic noise, no human chatter.

The name of the river gives us a clue as to the occasional fate of the place. Llynna comes from the Anglo-Saxon and means torrent – so that Lynmouth – where the East and West Lyns meet the sea – is the "town on the torrent".

In Lynmouth's case, the most fateful day came on August 15, 1952, when more than 90 million tons of water cascaded down the steep narrow valleys towards the small harbour village, causing death and devastation as it went. In all, 34 people lost their lives that black night.

Walking with Steve we could see the signs of flash-floods which had occurred even recently. Twigs, branches and other debris could be seen a good 20 feet above the surface of the river. So deep are these ravines that the stream doesn't so much break its banks but simply fills the valley. Walking here must be dangerous after very heavy rain.

In his book The Waters of Exmoor, author Noel Allen says of the area around Watersmeet: "The whole section is virtually one continuous cauldron of falls, with only an odd pool, and rarely a few yards of unbroken water as it drops 300 feet in 1,000 yards.

"Both banks are thickly wooded, the side precipitous with the winding path in places rising 100 feet above the water. Two thirds of the way along it dashes over three separate but closely connected falls, the biggest and finest series on any Exmoor river."

As we continued our stroll upstream to Rockford, Steve told me what had led him to applying for a job as warden on the trust's West Exmoor property.

"I came down to Devon in 1996 to go to university – studied rural resource management at Plymouth – and just fell in love with Devon and the Westcountry. Then, five years ago, I came to work voluntarily for the trust and was lucky enough to get a job here on Exmoor," he said.

"The estate I work on is the West Exmoor coast property – a fantastic property made up of four-and-a-half thousand acres along a 14-mile stretch of the North Devon coastline – centred on Lynton and Lynmouth. There's a team of three of us," explained Steve, "my boss, myself and another warden – and we carry out all the estate management on those 4,500 acres.

"That's anything from picking up litter, through to mending gates or fences, through to education for local school groups. Absolutely everything and anything that goes on here… There's a huge amount of maintenance with the footpaths.

"Everything from general maintenance, dealing with gullies, dealing with erosion process… But what your readers wouldn't see is some of the fallen tree work we do – and some of the tree assessment too – looking at some of the larger trees and seeing what condition they are in.

"The woodlands are fantastic," enthuses Steve. "They are actually the remains of an industrial landscape – the majority of the woodlands in the Watersmeet Valley were planted – sessile oak for the charcoal and lime burning and tanning industries of years gone by.

"But they now have a fantastic importance, not only as a landscape valley, but there's a conservation value as well. Indeed, we get a huge amount of different lichens here, as well as breeding birds, nesting birds…"

We walked on up to the hamlet of Rockford which is where we crossed the river to being the second half of the route. This simply took us back down the southern bank of the stream – past the pub, up a steep hill, then down a long meandering path to meet the river again to a particularly scenic part of the ravine.

"Behind us is one of my favourite places," said Steve. "It's called Long Pool – it's a beautiful straight long gorge, cut straight into the rock, with a waterfall. We get a lot of salmon swimming up and if you stand here long enough you will see them swimming up past the rapids."

We did indeed. In the clear water you could spot their sleek large forms darting about way down in the cold depths – one even leapt right in front of us – to quickly, alas, for me to fire up the video camera.

After waiting for 20 minutes and failing another salmon, we marched on downstream to eventually reach the junction where the East Lyn meets Farley Water. As our path neared the famous National Trust tea room at Watersmeet, the valley narrows and the path clings perilously to a craggy corner above the tumbling stream.

We turned the bend and suddenly, there before you, is the most magical cream tea setting of them all. So sylvan, so picturesque is Watersmeet, that you could be in some fantasy elfin landscape dreamt up by JRR Tolkein.

"Watersmeet is quite central to our property," said Steve. "It's a favourite walk with people who come up from Lynmouth, which is a mile and three-quarters. In summer the tea room is open so it's quite a focal point in the summer months.

"The history behind it is that it was a shooting and fishing lodge, built by the Halliday family in the 1800s, and then I think the Victorians converted it to tea rooms around the turn of the century. But it's a beautiful place – it did very well to survive the Lynmouth floods and is just a lovely setting."

As Exmoor writer Noel Allen observed somewhat wryly: "Not one person in a million who trips across the bridge for tea or ice-cream will ever see the lonely and remote beginning of Hoaroak Water in Chains Valley."

Mr Allen was right – this idyllic honey-trap is a place where folk on coach tours and motoring excursions stretch their legs and take in the magnificent scenery. What few people do is take Steve's favourite path to Rockford – and even fewer march way up into the moors to the bleak but beautiful place where Hoaroak Water bursts into life in the heart of the wilderness.

This, perhaps, is what makes the deep riverine gorges of the Rivers Lyn so superb – they are the most magical corridors that exist between the landlocked and the seaborne to be found anywhere.

- Next week: Martin Hesp is invited to an ancient port where there's been trouble brewing – not so much up the mill but down on the quayside…