North Somerset in the Footsteps of Coleridge by Simon Heptinstall

He was a long-haired scruffy rebel who dropped out of college, campaigned against war and took far too many drugs. He may have lived 200 years ago, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge was probably the world's first hippy.

The eccentric young philosopher moved to a tiny Somerset cottage to lead a simple life growing vegetables but was soon overwhelmed by the inspiring rural bliss of rolling hills and lush valleys. Within three years he had written dozens of highly-acclaimed poems, including two that became treasures of English literature - The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

I've always been interested in Coleridge for, like me, he was a Devon boy who went to Oxbridge with a head full of dreams and left wanting to change the world. We both became journalists although that's where the similarity ends. Despite the high standard of writing on Travel Intelligence, I can't pretend to have matched his poetic triumphs.

Nevertheless I was delighted to hear that The Coleridge Way - a 39-mile walking trail across north Somerset -had been launched. For too long we've ignored this immense part of our cultural history. For a few years at the end of the 18th century the sleepy village of Nether Stowey became a cauldron of avant garde British literature. Leading writers visited Coleridge - including Robert Southey who became poet laureate, Thomas de Quincey and Charles Lamb - and patrons like pottery magnate Josiah Wedgwood and eminent scientist Sir Humphrey Davy.

Coleridge even persuaded his best friend William Wordsworth to move there with his diary-writing sister Dorothy. In Somerset Wordsworth too wrote some of his greatest work, including The Lyrical Ballads and Tintern Abbey.

Modern academics marvel at this extraordinary literary blossoming in a little-known part of Somerset. They describe it as the birth of the English Romantic movement. Some say this small group changed the world - because their new intimate way of writing transformed forever the way we think and express ourselves.

Certainly an extraordinary Wordsworth industry has grown up in the Lake District, where Wordsworth and Coleridge lived later. Yet a casual visitor to North Somerset wouldn't notice any literary heritage. I hoped the new Somerset trail would be a step towards recognising this history. In some ways it seemed appropriate, Coleridge was a prodigious walker who once walked 41 miles from his home to Bristol - to return a library book. He thought nothing of a 30-mile stroll across the Quantocks. He'd conjure up his masterpieces in a notebook while marching for hours along bridleways criss-crossing the sweeping heathland overlooking the Bristol Channel.

Sadly there are two problems with the new trail. One is that nowadays only a tiny proportion of visitors will undertake a three-day trek from Stowey to Porlock. I wish them well - it's a charming route through wonderful countryside and unspoilt villages. But the vast majority of visitors will combine a few shorter walks with inevitable car journeys. The new Trail offers them nothing.

Worst still, The Coleridge Trail doesn't even go to some of the biggest spots in the poets' lives, including the specific inspirations for Kubla Khan and The Ancient Mariner. I decided to tour North Somerset to devise my own Coleridge Trail for Mail on Sunday readers. Walk, drive or cycle as little or as much as you like. Even if you don't like poetry, it's a lovely patch of coast and countryside dotted with great pubs and beaches - and who knows, you may end up being inspired to scribble a few lines yourself…

My trail started in the pretty village of Nether Stowey between Bridgwater and Minehead. Coleridge moved here in 1797 with wife Sarah and baby Hartley. You'll notice a new housing estate called Hartley Meadows. More importantly the National Trust own Coleridge's old house, which is open three afternoons a week during the summer.

In the next village, Holford, you'll find Alfoxton House where Wordsworth and Dorothy lived. It's now a slightly run-down two-star hotel that makes little of its former famous residents although its extensive grounds still include the deer park and miles of woods where the poets walked. The walled kitchen garden is also much as Dorothy recorded in her diaries and still produces vegetables for the hotel kitchen.

To the west of Holford are deep lush 'combes', or valleys, where the poets were regularly inspired by waterfalls and woods. This whole area can be explored along public footpaths. Suggested walks are available in Coleridge's House in Stowey.

And it's worth visiting Alfoxton just to sit in the wood-panelled bar. It's little changed from the morning Coleridge burst in on the Wordsworths after breakfast, having walked from Stowey. He promptly pulled out the manuscript of a newly-finished poem. "What do you think of this?" he asked and started reading. It was The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

A short drive away is Watchet, a charming muddle of streets and alleys between whitewashed cottages. There's a surprisingly impressive new sculpture of The Ancient Mariner complete with albatross round his neck on the harbourside. Coleridge sat in the Bell Inn nearby and started writing his epic poem.

Next I drove to the village of West Quantoxhead. From the National Trust car park at Staple Plain you can walk up a wide path disappearing over the horizon. This is part of The Great Road, an ancient drovers' trail to Taunton with stunning views over the coast. Perhaps you'll sense how Coleridge and Wordsworth were stirred to begin the composing the first lines of The Ancient Mariner while strolling down this track towards Watchet.

It's a spectacular drive along the coast to Culbone Valley, between Porlock and Lynton. This is an important spot for English literature but you'll need a good map. You have to walk deep into these secluded woods to find Culbone Church - it's England's smallest. Dorothy Wordsworth's journal describes the trio's visit here.

When Coleridge visited again alone, he stayed in a farm overlooking the beautiful valley. He woke from an opium-fuelled dream about a wondrous magical landscape and started writing immediately with his quill. The result was the exotic fantasy poem Kubla Khan, which begins "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…" The poem remained unfinished - Coleridge blamed an uninvited visitor "The Person from Porlock" for disrupting his train of thought. When he returned to the paper he'd forgotten the dream. It's fun trying to guess which farm he stayed at - there's no record.