Looking down the Otterhead Back Drive

THE OTTERHEAD ESTATE TRUST is a not-for-profit limited company set up to lease, conserve and part restore the built heritage and designed landscape at the heart of the Victorian Otterhead Estate.

The Estate, owned by Wessex Water, is in the Taunton Deane Borough parishes of Churchstanton and Otterford, Somerset, close to the East Devon, Mid Devon and South Somerset District boundaries.

The Estate Trust is continuing the work of Somerset Wildlife Trust (formerly the Somerset Trust for Nature Conservation) and the Estate has recently been designated by Taunton Deane Borough Council as a Local Nature Reserve.

The Estate surrounds the chain of lakes and former lakes fed by the River Otter. There are also silted leats and ponds; former parkland; overgrown terraced walks leading from the site of the demolished Otterhead House and derelict gardens.

The Estate Trust seeks to involve local residents, groups and communities and those who visit from further afield. It has the support of the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council as well as Somerset Wildlife Trust and Somerset Gardens Trust.

The Estate provides opportunities for quiet leisure pursuits such as walking and is also being developed as an education resource.

Community involvement includes a recently formed Friends Group; revising a leaflet describing the Nature Trail and producing a new leaflet with some details of the Estate's history and surviving heritage features (both now also available on the internet), as well as developing a website (details below). 

For further information including planned events, news items and in the minutes section, some matters discussed at Otterhead Steering Group meetings, please click on the link below to leave this Town, Parish or Community website and enter the Otterhead Estate and Lakes website provided free of charge for the not-for-profit Estate Trust by The Local Channel: