South to Ugborough: Day 32 of the South West Odyssey (English Branch)

The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.

Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.

Devon

Last night's renewed confidence was bolstered by a good night's sleep and I discovered I was moving fairly easily when, bright and early, I followed Brian to Ugborough to drive him back after he had parked his car at the end of today’s walk.

Day 32 (in yellow)

After breakfast Mike took us back to the lane between Cross Furzes and Lud Gate where we finished yesterday. We walked to Lud Gate and onto the open moor.

Walking to Lud Gate

For the second day running we started high (305m) but almost immediately had to climb higher. I was not particularly quick up Hickerton Hill (420m), but not desperately slow either and it felt a lot less brutal than yesterday's opening salvo.

Up Hickerton Hill from Lud Gate

The view from the top was of moorland stretching as far as the eye could see.

There is plenty of moorland!

Yesterday, I failed to mention the skylarks over Haytor Down; they were here too, their fluttering song softening the moor’s austere beauty. This is a landscape formed by nature, by the soil and rocks and the cool, damp maritime climate. It is also a landscape formed by people, we would shortly encounter the remains of recent activity while medieval crosses and boundary markers are everywhere and on the hillside opposite were hut circles and Huntingdon Barrow (less prosaically known as the 'Heap of Sinners'), built by the region's earliest inhabitants.

Ancient Settlement on Huntingdon Warren

From the summit, as we picked our way through the mire towards Western Wella Brook...

Descending towards Western Wella Brook

... we passed what at first I took for a ruined dwelling, but it was far too narrow – and full of water. Mike suggested it might have housed a waterwheel; Richard Knghts’ excellent Dartmoor Walks  confirms that, identifying it as the only easily visible remains of Wheal Vor, a tin mine that closed in 1815.

Waterwheel pit from Devon Wheal Vor tin mine

We had strayed too far to the right and reached the brook north of the crossing point. A long step from the bank to a tall, flat topped stone and then another to the far side were enough for Brian and Mike. Those of us blessed with shorter legs continued downstream through a land in aqueous solution.

Alison following the West Wella Brook
(the brook is actually 30m to her right, but detours were necessary to get round the boggier sections) 

The map shows a ford just above the confluence with the River Avon, and here the stream is wider and shallower though it is not an easy crossing if you want to keep your feet dry. Undoubtedly my passage was inelegant and wobbly, but as I couldn't photograph myself, here is Alison.

Alison crossing the West Wella Brook

Huntingdon Cross is near the ford. Originally it was a waymarker on the Abbot’s Way, a route between Buckfast Abbey to the south and the abbeys of Tavistock and Buckland to the north, but after the dissolution of Buckfast Abbey in 1539 it was commandeered by Sir William Petre, Henry VIII’s Secretary of State, to be a boundary marker of his vast estates – which now included the former Abbey lands. Sir William served Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I in the same capacity, dextrously hopping backwards and forwards between Catholicism and Protestantism. You have to admire his agility, if not his integrity.

Huntingdon Cross, 

We followed the Avon upstream. There is a ford and Francis left the path to check it out but deemed it better to detour a short way upstream to the Huntingdon Warren clapper bridge.

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The (Devon) River Avon

Clapper bridges are a feature of Dartmoor and Exmoor but this was the first on this walk, and it was a splendid bridge on which to cross the third Avon of the Odyssey, after the Warwickshire (Shakespeare's) Avon in 2010 (Day 7) and the Bristol Avon in 2013 (Day 16). We shall leave England's two other Avons, both in Hampshire, uncrossed.

We all crossed to the far side, then returned as it was eleven o'clock and there were better places to sit for coffee on the near side. It was the sort of bridge I was happy to walk across twice, and again so I could pose in the middle for a photo. And I wasn't the only one.

Francis & me on the Huntingdon Warren clapper bridge over the (Devon) Avon (photo: Alison)

It was thought that clapper bridges were ancient, but most are medieval and, like this one, associated with a nearby ford, from which the word ‘clapper’ is probably derived via Latin or Anglo-Saxon.

From here the Two Moors Way makes a lengthy detour contouring round the end of Western White Barrow but it was much shorter to go straight over its 480m summit. We had hardly left the bridge when the rain started, first as drizzle but getting steadily harder.

As we started to climb I paused to put on my allegedly waterproof jacket over my genuinely showerproof coat then got down to a slow but steady upward plod. There have not been many (any?) climbs where I have reached the top before Francis, so this may have been a first. When Mike and I passed him, he was sitting in the long, sodden grass in sluicing rain struggling into a pair of over-trousers. All three of us were wearing shorts, but skin dries quickly, so why bother covering it?

Francis had nearly caught us up by the time we had reached Petre's Cross (him again) on the summit. Below us was a disused tramway, and below that, in the valley, another tramway snaked into the distance following the contours between the hills.

Petre's Cross on Western White Barrow

We made our way to the first tramway, walked along it briefly and then picked a spot to descend to the second. The boggy ground made watching your feet at every step essential. And then the rain turned into hail, which stung a bit.

Boggy ground on Western White Barrow

The attraction of the tramway for me was its flatness, I can keep up on the flat, but what made it an absolute winner (and the Two Moors Way follows the same route) is its relative dryness. Nothing on the moor is absolutely dry, the tramway had flooded sections to detour round, but the risk of sinking up to your knees in mud was minimal.

Along the Red Lake Tramway

Unlike the Haytor Granite Tramway yesterday, The Redlake Tramway, for such this was, was an 8 mile long narrow-gauge railway built in 1911 to haul china clay from the moor to the main line near Bittaford. Operations finished in 1932 and it was subsequently dismantled.

It took longer than I expected to cover the first two kilometres to Left Lake. Despite appearances the lake on the left of my photo is not Left Lake, in fact it's not a lake at all, it is a pond created by the removal of china clay. The Left Lake is actually the steam which drains Left Lake Mire (and now the pond as well) flowing beneath the tramway to the infant River Erme. We had joined the Redlake Tramway well south of the Red Lake, which is also, perversely, a steam, though there is now also a pool for the same reason.

The lake on the left is not the left lake at Left Lake (I hope that is clear)

We strode on, the rain long gone, contouring between the hills. Alison looked at her map 'That's Sharp Tor,' she said pointing at a protuberance ahead of us. She was a little behind Francis and on his deaf ear and it was with perfect, if inadvertent, comic timing that Francis immediately pointed at the same hill and said 'That's Three Barrows'.

In due course we stopped for a lunchless lunch break. The landscape changes slowly when walking between the hills but the path itself is almost featureless and can be confusing. The consensus was that the hill ahead was Piles Hill but Mike spotted a distinctive triangular forest down to our right which meant it must be Ugborough Beacon and we were a kilometre further on than we thought.

Looking beyond the wood, we caught a first glimpse of the sea, a large inlet which we identified as the Tamar estuary at Plymouth, though the city remained hidden.

We had been on the tramway for over five kilometres, but before the beacon, at a place marked by the medieval Spurrell's Cross the tramway swung right, round the eastern side of Butterdon Hill while we would bore left to pass between Butterdon Hill and Ugborough Beacon.

Leaving the tramway to walk round Ugborough Beacon

We passed through burnt gorse on the side of the beacon. The burning may have been the result of a wild fire or management of the moor, but what surprised me was that anything here had ever been dry enough to burn.

Burnt gorse on the flank of Ugborough Beacon

We descended the southern flank of Ugborough Beacon, the first serious contours we had encountered for some time, to Wrangaton golf course.

Down to Wrangaton Golf Course

Here we left the moor for the final time and entered the South Hams. A field path and lane taking us past Moorhaven Village.

Plymouth Asylum opened in 1891, built in response to the 1890 Lunacy Act. The complex grew and developed, becoming Moorhaven Mental Hospital before closing in the 1980s. Redeveloped as Moorhaven Village, a housing complex with communal gardens and sports facilities, this once grim Victorian institution is now a desirable place to live.

Moorhaven Village

Moorhaven is immediately north of Bittaford, a large village with a functioning and open pub, the first since Lustleigh last year, so we took advantage of the situation (well, why not? Ugborough was only two kilometres away). There had been no rain for several hours, but as we pushed open the door of the Horse and Groom it started spitting, as we drank it became torrential and by the time we had finished, so had the rain.

Bittaford is at a height of 130m, Ugborough is slightly lower so it could have been a gentle end to the day, but Devon is not like that. From Bittaford we made way down to and under the A38 and then descended further to cross the Lud Brook at 80m. From here Ugborough was on the other side of a ridge that rose to 150m, definitely a sting in the tail, but not on the scale of yesterday's.

Looking back at Bittaford from the top of the grassy section

The initial climb up a grassy field was steep, but then we hit a minor road which rose gently to Toby Cross before descending into Ugborough.

Garden on the edge of Ugborough (pity it was bin day!)

Despite its unfortunate name, acquired from once being the fortified homestead of a Saxon called Ugga (what were his parents thinking?) Ugborough is a pleasant village with a large 12th century church (in poor condition inside, Lynne tells me) and a market square still used for markets, but on the days we needed it fortunately performing the function of car park.

Ugborough Market Square

Unlike yesterday I finished if not fresh, at least still feeling human. Brian drove us to our new B&B, up the hill on the other side of Ugborough giving a preview of tomorrow's taxing start.

We stayed just outside the small town of Modbury (did they once have fights with Rockerbury?)and ventured into town to dine on pub fare at the Modbury Inn. Some also had a pint our two of Jail Ale from the Dartmoor brewery at Princetown a stone's throw from the prison. Brian and Francis rate it very highly, so I will finish this report with a controversial statement. I do not understand what the fuss is about, I would be just as happy with a pint of the very similar Doom Bar - though the fabulously hoppy Proper Job, is, for me, the pick of the beers we've encountered in the south west.

The Modbury Inn, Modbury

The South West Odyssey (English Branch)

Introduction

Day 1 to 3 (2008);Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley

Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge

Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook

Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads

Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud

Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley

Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury

Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford

Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley

Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells

Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'

Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport

 Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone

 Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks

Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea

Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill

Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018): South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018): Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019): Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019): Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post

That's All Folks - The Odyssey is over