After a good farmhouse breakfast we left West Bowden, walked
back up out of the dip, through the field of spring lambs and turned left onto
the minor road heading towards the A361.
After 500m the Two Moors Way detours to find a route under
the main road. Thinking it was appropriate to check my map, I found my efforts
hampered by lack of glasses. The others waited as I walked as swiftly as I
could back to West Bowden. The field of sheep greeted me like an old friend,
setting off a tremendous baa-ing, and I was relieved to find my glasses where I
thought I had left them. I set off back, still at top speed. When I hit the
rise from the farmhouse for the second time that morning I began to feel it and
I was breathing heavily by the time I made the road. Despite working hard to
give the impression of rapid movement I was definitely slowing long before I re-joined
my companions, who were waiting with more patience than I deserved.
 |
| Spring lambs, West Bowden |
We detoured left and then right down the edge of
Knowstone Inner Moor. At first it was a pleasant path….
 |
| Along the edge of Knowstone Inner Moor |
….. but as it dropped towards the Sturcombe River it became muddier
and muddier. Wooden walkways covered some of the worst of it, but there was
still plenty to wallow in.
 |
| Francis on Knowstone Inner Moor looking like he wishes he was somewhere else |
Slipping, sliding and sometimes sinking, we eventually reached
a drier path that took us under the A361 and then to the minor road we had
driven along to Rackenford last night.
 |
| Under the A361 |
A right turn onto Canworthy Common put us on a green lane.
Wide, relatively dry and yielding underfoot, this pleasant path lasted just
over a kilometre.
 |
| Along the green lane |
We emerged onto a minor road. The Two Moors Way involves a lot
of road walking, at least between the moors, and we were now in for more than
4km of it. It is unusual to find such a paucity of footpaths in a very rural
area.
Road walking has occasional compensations; a short section of the verge
was covered in primroses….
 |
| Bank of primroses beside the road |
… while Creacomber Cross gave us our first view of Dartmoor,
which we will reach next year (if we are spared, as Terry Wogan used to say).
 |
| Dartmoor rising in the distance, Creacomber Cross |
At Creacombe Parsonage, we passed the high, dense hedge of
the Acorns Naturist Retreat. Somebody used the strangely dated phrase 'nudist
colony' and for the next five minutes there was a sorry descent into full Carry
On mode; somehow the seventies never died.
Twenty minutes later we paused for coffee leaning on a gate
at Crowdhole Cross with a lovely view over the fields down to the Sturcombe
River (again). It was, though, a noisy place – those birds never shut up.
 |
| Coffee-time view down to the Sturcombe River, somewhere down the bottom there |
We slogged on down the apparently endless road,......
 |
| Endless minor road, approaching Bradford Barton |
...... past
Bradford Barton, across the Little Dart River at Bradford Mill and up the hill
beyond. Just as it started to steepen we at last turned off to follow a
footpath below Bradford Moor Plantation.
 |
| Below Bradford Moor Plantation |
Beyond the woods we crossed the slope above
the Little Dart, passing its confluence with the Sturcombe.
 |
| The slope above the Little Dart River |
Approaching a gate in a fence I became aware that Mike appeared
to be straddling a sheep. In Wales we call that 'foreplay' but he claimed he was
freeing the ewe, disentangling its head from the wire fence. He stuck to his
story and for the defence he might point out that he has previous with animal
rescue, a lamb hauled from a pit on the Brecon Beacons and the freeing of a
string entwined magpie in Somerset spring readily to mind.
We had to sacrifice much of the height gained earlier to
cross an unnamed tributary before climbing through Yeo Copse and across the
fields to Witheridge.
 |
| Up through the Yeo Copse |
With just over a thousand inhabitants, Witheridge was by far
the biggest settlement we had encountered since
Watchet, itself hardly a
metropolis.
 |
| Witheridge |
It was just warm enough to sit outside the Mitre to enjoy a
couple of pints of lunch.
 |
| A pint of lunch at the Mitre, Witheridge |
In Witheridge the Two Moors Way picks its way between the
houses then drops across a field to a stream. Like most fields the muddiest
section was around the gate.
 |
| Brian and Mike navigate round the mud |
After another 'up' followed by a steep 'down' we reached a footbridge
over the River Dalch from where a wooded climb took us up to Washford Pyne.
 |
| The climb up to Washford Pyne |
The waters of the Dalch, like the Little Dart find their way
into the Taw and thence to the north Devon Coast. At yesterday’s start, much
further north, we had crossed the Barle, which flows into the Exe and on to the
south Devon coast. Tracing the watershed through the deeply folded Devon
countryside is not easy.
St Peter’s Church at Washford Pyne looked a handsome
building to me. The
Devon County Council website quotes from a 1954 book
entitled
Devon by W.G. Hoskins ‘Washford
Pyne church was wholly rebuilt in 1883-7 and is of no interest.’
Ah well.
 |
| St Peter's, Washwood Pyne |
The pattern of ups and downs continued. From Washford Pyne the
path through Washford Wood started level,…
 |
| Through Washford Wood |
… but soon descended to a stream,….
 |
| The bridge at the bottom of Washford Wood |
….. then it was up and over, and repeat, to the hamlet of
Lower Black Dog.
 |
| Lower Black Dog |
The village of Black Dog was a few hundred metres to our
east, but we would return there in the evening to dine at the pub,
unsurprisingly called the Black Dog Inn.
Black Dog lies on the highest ridge between Exmoor and Dartmoor,
giving views of both moors at once. We passed through
Blue Anchor on the
Somerset coast last year, and this may well be another case of a village taking
its name from its pub. Black Dog grew up round a well and a story tells of how
the tunnel running from the well to Berry Castle, an earthwork a mile to the
south, was once guarded by a ghostly black dog. Sadly, no such tunnel ever
existed and the story sounds suspiciously like a later invention to explain a
name already in use.
The undulations continued, as we first walked west then south
to our B&B. There were no great heights to scale, the ridge at Black Dog is
a little over 200m, but between the ridges the path had a way of dropping quite steeply
and then, at what should be the bottom of the valley, there was a further descent to the stream
itself which had spent several millennia digging itself deeper and deeper into its bed.
 |
| About to drop down to the next stream |
On one of the high points we passed an isolated barn containing
the remains of a threshing machine that had once been dragged from farm to farm
behind a traction engine. Several years' restoration work was available for an
enthusiast, but I would not know where to start. Mike gave one of the wheels an
exploratory turn, and it moved surprisingly easily. That was when the pigeons nesting
inside decided to complain.
 |
| Mike inspects the remains of a steam powered threshing machine |
By the time we had finished examining it, Francis was
dwindling into the distance on the way down to the next stream.
 |
| Francis dwindles into the distance |
We reached the B&B, an isolated farmhouse, about 4.30. The
farmyard was something of a contrast to the neat and orderly world of West
Bowden Farm the previous evening.
Our stay with Brian and Hilary in
Torquay last week had
provided an insight into the worlds of collecting and hoarding. Brian is, among
other things, a walker while Hilary is a collector. She likes to cover every
surface with objets d'art, mainly of far eastern origin, many of very high
quality. Together we had visited Greenway, the former home of Agatha Christie.
Christie and her daughter also filled their house, perhaps over-enthusiastically.
The National Trust have kept it as it was, perched on the cusp between
collecting and hoarding. Tonight's friendly landlady had no truck with ‘the cusp,’
she was a confirmed hoarder; you always had to move something to sit down.
The welcome was warm and genuine, but she was elderly so it
did not include twenty-first century ‘necessities’ like Wi-Fi, nor indeed late twentieth
century ‘necessities’ like mobile phone signals, en suite bathrooms,
televisions, tea making equipment or even heating. 'I don’t light the wood
burners because there's jackdaws nesting in the chimneys and I don't like to
disturb them.' Our stay was appropriately inexpensive, but I suspect she was in business more for company than the money.
Later Brian nobly drove us back to the similarly welcoming
but more up to date (free Wi-Fi) Black Dog for a pleasant evening involving food
and beer – two of my favourites.
The South West Odyssey (English Branch)
