Where should the South West Coast Path begin?

Martin Hesp explores a ‘glorious’ potential extension from Portishead

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The South West Coast Path has been making headlines recently, partly thanks to the now rather infamous Salt Path debacle, but also because we've had a glorious summer (if you're a walker and not a farmer, that is) and increased numbers - inspired by the book or the film - have been trudging along at least some of its 630-mile length. But where should our most famous long distance trail really begin and end?

I ask the question because, although the 47-year-old path begins at my own hometown of Minehead, there have been a few changes in recent times - namely the development of the England Coast Path (officially called the King Charles III England Coast Path), a new walking route that will eventually encircle the entire coastline.

So, why should something called the South West Coast Path begin 40 or 50 miles along our glorious peninsula's littoral, and not at the actual start? And where is the actual start?

Well, you could argue it's at Portishead, near where the River Avon joins the place where the Severn Estuary comes-of-age to become the Bristol Channel proper. Look at a map of the entire peninsula and that really is the most obvious corner for a coast path to begin its march west, rather than way down the Somerset coast more than halfway to Devon.

And guess what. There is a glorious section of coast path that you can enjoy that would begin an easterly extension of the greatest public right-of-way in the world. How do I know that to be the case? Because my pal Richard, the editor of the Western Daily Press, told me so and he took me along the surprisingly lovely stretch from Portishead to Clevedon.