Favourite trails: Staple Fitzpaine Herepath

This is the first in an occasional series of posts about my favourite running trails. The Staple Fitzpaine Herepath is a roughly 13 mile circular route in the Blackdown Hills just outside Taunton.

The Herepath takes you through a constantly changing landscape of forest paths, grassy fields, stone tracks, and quiet country lanes, with plenty of spectacular views along the way. If you’re lucky, you might also see an Exmoor pony or two as well 🙂

A brief trip around the Herepath - one of my favourite trails


Herepaths, or ‘people’s paths’, date back to the ninth century and historically were important trade and communication routes between settlements.

The video makes it look fairly flat, but believe me, it’s not. For a challenging and fun multi-terrain bit-more-than-a-half-marathon, try out the Herepath Half on 30th October.