Prawle Point to Start Bay : The End. The 36th and Final Day 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.

A Rocky Point, a Sweeping Bay and a Lost Village bring the Odyssey to its End

From Prawle Pont to Start Point: The Devon Coastal Path at Sea Level

Devon

Having walked much closer to our accommodation over the last two days there was minimal car shuffling this morning. We picked up Mike from the caravan park where Francis left his car and then Brian drove us all back to the National Trust car park at Prawle Point, the journey a final reminder of the narrowest of Devon’s many narrow lanes.

National trust Car Park, Prawle Point

We had crossed Prawle Point yesterday….

Looking back to Prawle Point (photo: Brian)

….and to the east the path followed a wide grassy shelf just above the level of the beach.

The Coastline east of Prawle Point

Walking was easy up to and beyond Malcombe Point.

Maelcombe (sic) House and oubuildings above Malcombe Point

We had to climb around Woodcombe point and take a short journey inland to cross the stream beyond….

Approaching Woodcombe Point

…but then it was easy going again until we paused for coffee on Lannacombe Beach.

Coffee stop, Lannacombe Beach

We continued through an area called ‘The Narrows’, the path still flat and only a little above sea level, but with higher ground close by to our left. As Alison’s graph of the walk shows, there was no significant climbing until well past the 6km mark….

The Day 36 walk and height profile as mapped by Alison's ap

…at the apparently nameless headland before Start Point.

The apparently nameless headland before Start Point

Start Point and a View of Start Bay

Once over that we could see Start Point itself. A significant promontory with a jagged rocky spine, the point derives its name from the Anglo-Saxon steort meaning ‘tail’. The lighthouse was built in 1836 by Trinity House who installed their first dioptric optic here. This was replaced in 1871 by a more sophisticated version designed by James Douglass (that name rang a bell: he was also responsible for the Dondra Head lighthouse on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, see (Through Hambantota to the Beaches of Mirissa). The lighthouse is now automated and has a two-tier LED lantern.

Start Point and lighthouse

A steady rise on a well graded path took us up to the base of the headland, today’s high point just short of 130m. Despite the height we had to turn north and walk a couple of hundred metres gently downhill to reach the best viewpoint.

Start Bay and the rest of our walk from the viewpoint

From Ringmore we had been following the coastline in a generally south easterly direction. At Prawle point, we had gone as far south as Devon goes and had walked slightly north of east to Start Point. Here the coastal path turns north along the great sweep of Start Bay and then north to north east all the way to Dorset; not for the first time, but definitely for the last, the Southwest Odyssey would belie its name.

Start Bay

We would descend to Hallsands, cross the low headland to Beesands where we dined last night, then cross the headland beyond. Hidden behind it is Torpoint, our end for the day, indeed forever. The freshwater lake of Slapton Ley, divided from the sea by the bar of Slapton Sands is just beyond Torpoint.

The Lost Village of Hallsands

Hallsands (Photo: Brian)

Getting down to Hallsands took around 20mins.

The photo shows a few buildings on a cliff, several of them new many of them holiday cottages, and a couple of dilapidated dwellings on a rocky ledge at the cliff foot. A plaque at the entrance to the village commemorates the events of 1917.

Hallsands Centenary Plaque

The fishing village of Hallsands was established around 1600 on a stable rock shelf protected by a substantial shingle beach. In 1891 it had 159 inhabitants and a public house.

In the 1890s the government wanted to expand the steamship facilities at Devonport Naval Base. To provide the necessary sand and gravel, dredging began offshore from Hallsands extracting up to 1,600 tons a day. When the level of the beach began to drop protests from the villagers persuaded the Board of Trade to establish an inquiry. Their survey concluded that the dredging posed no threat to the village, so it was allowed to continue. The beach level continued to fall and in the 1900 autumn storms part of the sea wall was washed away. In November the villagers petitioned their Member of Parliament, complaining of damage to their houses, and in September 1901 a new Board of Trade inspection recommended that dredging stop. It did so in January 1902.

The beach made a partial recovery. 15 years later, in January 1917, a combination of easterly gales and high tides breached the sea wall and by the end of that year only one house remained habitable; Hallsands had become a lost village. The villagers fight for compensation took seven years.

The site of the old village is closed to the public but South Hams Council has built a viewing platform…

The lost village of Hallsands from the viewing platform (photo: Brian)

…it is difficult to believe this is all that remains of a street which once had dwellings on both sides. City of Plymouth Archives have a photograph, now happily in the public domain, showing the village in 1855.

Hallsands Village, 1855 (photo: Plymouth City Archives)

We walked through the modern village…

Leaving the modern village of Hallsands

…across North Hallsands beach and started to climb the headland beyond.

To Beesands and Widdicombe Ley

As we walked the rising field paths someone noticed that we could look back and see Lamacraft Farm and, to the left, the cottage where we had spent the last three nights.

Lamacraft Farm, right, and our cottage far left

The path did not go over the top of the headland, finding instead a lower route across its face, the upper slope covered in bluebells.

The bluebell covered headland between Hallsands and Beesands

We had considered stopping for a pint of refreshment in Beesands, but decided we were that close to the end we might as well keep going. Despite the decision we paused for so long at a bench outside the pub that Alison’s ap thought we had stopped and marked the spot with a black circle.

Beesands consists of a line of buildings on one side of the road, a sea wall on the other, and just to the north a sandy beach. Behind the beach is the reed fringed Widdicombe Ley, and we watched a pair of swans fly in and then take off again, not an easy task for birds that size.

At the end of the beach a path led up the side of the wooded headland. Rising gently, it cut into the woodland and I thought it would be an easy stroll down to Torpoint, and said so to Brian. Then, having lulled me into a false sense of security it rose sharply through a series of natural stone steps, each one just too high for comfort. When Brian paused to photograph the ley, he gently suggested I might have misjudged it, and indeed I had, this was the traditional sting in the tail.

Widdicombe Ley and Beesands village behind

Torpoint

It was a tough conclusion to what had been a fairly gentle day of only 14km. When we walked from Stafford to Barmouth it seemed natural to finish by marching into the sea, this time we had been walking along the coast and it did not seem so necessary. Alison C, though, was adamant that a paddle was the appropriate end to the Odyssey - and who is to say she was wrong.

Alison has finished the Odyssey, Torpoint

The End of the Odyssey

Non-walkers Lynne and Alison T arrived and were pressed into service taking the obligatory team photo, so here we are on beach at Torpoint.

The team at the end, Torpoint
l to r Alison C, Mike, Me, Brian, Francis

And this is how we looked in 2008 at the start in the Cardingmill Valley.

The start, Cardingmill Valley, Shropshire, 28/05/2008
l to r Me, Francis, Alison, Mike, Brian

Despite a little more grey hair I think on the whole, we all look a little younger after our Odyssey. And that is my fantasy, be kind and stay silent.

And after the photo, a cream tea - what else should one do in Devon? The tea provoked much discussion, should the clotted cream go on top of the jam or below? Clearly, in my view, it is substituting for butter so should go where the butter normally goes, meaning Brian has his upside-down, but I doubt he would accept that. The café only offered strawberry jam, and I would have it no other way, but voices were raised to say a cream tea is only a real cream tea with blackberry jam. We did not even get on to the pronunciation of ‘scone’.

Brian's Cream tea (photo: Brian)

After that argument discussion we split up and went our separate ways.

And that was the end of the Odyssey for this year, all that is left is for me to note that we walked 48km, hardly our longest but we were constrained by time consuming logistics (and nothing to do with getting older)

But that was also the end of the Odyssey for ever, after 36 days walking spread over 12 years 2008-19 (inclusive, of course), so there has to be more: some thanks, reflections, assessments. And there will be – but not in this post which has already gone on long enough.

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 done.