Landscape & Geology

Luppitt village sits high on the side of a distinctive steep-sided valley, carved out of the flat-topped East Devon Plateau, and lies within the Blackdown Hills National Landscape.

At the head of the valley, the springs which feed the River Love flow across an expanse of valley mire on Hense Moor.  These and a series of feeder streams further down the valley flow into the Love, which winds its way south, passing the hamlets of Beacon, Wick and Shaugh, to join the River Otter at Langford Bridge.

A distinctive spine of plateau land extends down the east side of Hense Moor across flat-topped Hartridge Common to the hamlet of Beacon, and on to Dumpdon Hill, which dominates the view of the valley from Honiton, with its distinctive crest of trees.  The land in the parish to the east of this spine of land falls eastwards to drain into the Otter.

To the west, the LLP project area extends up the valley side into Combe Raleigh parish, with Windgate Hill forming the western boundary.

The geology of the Luppitt valley, is characteristic of the rest of the Blackdown Hills.  A cap of clay-with-flints on the plateau is underlain by a thick band of greensand (laid down in the Cretaceous Period, 70-140 million years ago), which in turn lies over a band of Triassic mudstones (laid down between 200 and 240 million years ago).  Where the porous greensand meets the impervious mudstone, there is a distinct ‘springline’ giving rise to wet ground.