Hartland Quay to Clovelly: such is life.

We thought today was going to be relatively a doddle after the rigours of the previous days. Statistically it was: way less climbing for example and long sections of flattish cliff top. It certainly had its own challenges though - walking sloping, path-less field boundaries very tiring. As became the theme: such is life. Quite. Absolutely. Precisely. etc. Komoot summary here. 

A rather misty start: not used to this but a welcome respite from the sun.

A few ups and downs to get the cardio going of course and our first objective was the Hartland Point lighthouse. Well before that though, we were easily passed early on by Ben - a 30-year old walker who'd started at South Haven Point (Studland, effectively) just 17 days ago and had been averaging 30 miles a day. Maximum respect. His approach was to carry only a sleeping bag and a bivvy bag and just bed down at the end of the day, taking meals along the route and stopping at the occasional hostel. Nice guy and we thought he'd leave us way behind. Wrong.

Approaching Blagdon Mouth we started to see Lundy Island in the murky distance. Frankly you can barely see it in this photo - it never really got any clearer

but what we did see was a delightful field of foxgloves. I've never seen so many together (what's the collective term - heartstopper?) and it brought out the David Bailey in both of us.


There are really very few buildings or settlements round here, it is very bleak, which makes it all the more remarkable that Hartland Quay was built at all.
It has been, like so many rocky headlands, the site of too many shipwrecks and not surprisingly there's a lighthouse here: automatic of course, Trinity House stopped manning lighthouses some years ago.

There is also a monument to the torpedoe-ing of a hospital ship in WW2, only put there in 2002 so some memories are still quite raw.

Just round the headland (we'd turned a corner now and were heading East) we found a cafe and stopped for a treat: my usual flapjack health food and some coconut and chocolate monstrosity for Nic. It was then we saw Ben again, looking decidedly the worse for wear. He'd only stopped walking at 10 pm the previous night, hadn't had enough to eat or drink and was struggling. Looked like he'd had too much sun as well. He waved away our concerns and we left him resting his head on the picnic bench. I'm sure he'll be fine (he's only 30: still immortal) but it was another lesson in how these trails can cause problems if you don't look after yourself properly. Been there, suffered that (See Zennor mishaps).

From here pretty much all the way to Clovelly was high clifftop walking, with just the occasional respite as the path dipped into some wooded valleys. Not the most scenic, and difficult to get close enough to the edge for decent photographs. To start with we enjoyed the flat going but this was short-lived. The path was mostly along field boundaries but very indistinct, sloping and difficult to walk on with any rhythm. We ended up cursing it. Plenty of horseflies too, that enjoyed my arms, just to add to the experience.

We did come across a monument that I'd been keen to find, to a Wellington bomber crew who sadly flew into the cliffside in April 1942

Interesting to note the variety of crew (Canadian, New Zealand and RAF) and the junior ranks: no one above pilot officer.

And so we approached Clovelly, passing Mouthmill and its Blackchurch rock and found this shelter. It's called the Angels Wings shelter because of the elegant carvings of angels and angels wings supporting the roof. It was built in the 19th century by Sir James Hamlyn Williams, a former owner of Clovelly, so that he could look across Bideford Bay towards where his daughter, Lady Chichester, lived at Youlston. 

We made it to Clovelly which I had last visited with Karen and I let Nic go in to the village alone - it's incredibly steep and I'd had enough. It is fascinating though and should you get the chance is a must-see.
Described by Susan Coolidge in the Katy series as “..built on the sides of a crack in a tremendous cliff; the "street" is merely the bottom of the crack, into which the ingenuity of man has fitted a few stones, set slant-wise, with intersecting ridges on which the foot can catch as it goes slipping hopelessly down”. It has a steep (400 ft drop) entirely pedestrianised street with no vehicular access, deliveries are made by sled down the cobbles and waste is slid down to the harbour. 71 of the buildings are listed, more than 50 of those on the main street and some of the buildings are over 500 years old. It is a quite extraordinary place.

Unusually. the village is still privately owned and has been associated with only three families since the middle of the 13th century, nearly 800 years. It is currently run by an Estate company led by the Hon John Rous, a descendant of the Hamlyn family who have owned the village, estate and manor house Clovelly Court since 1738.

Novelist Charles Kingsley lived here for 5 years, his father was curate and rector, and his novel Westward Ho! (I'm ashamed to say I've never read it) helped to promote tourism here. It has had mentions in books by Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling and been painted by Whistler and Turner. Joss Ackland lives nearby.

In an 18th century chapbook The History of John Gregg and his Family of Robbers and Murderers  "Chovaley" (i.e. Clovelly) was once the home of a tribe of cannibalistic bandits where Gregg and his extended family of dozens, having committed over 1,000 murders were eventually tracked down by bloodhounds and were burnt alive in three fires. They were said to have lived in "a cave near the sea-side". It is fiction but there is a section of the local cliff called the Devil’s Kitchen.

Just so you get some idea, here's a picture I culled which gives some idea of the steepness of the main street:

Main street, Clovelly

Nic leaves tomorrow to go back to his high-paced (relative to me anyway) London life. We're certainly a good double act on bizarre conversation, if occasionally it gets embarrassing: we were talking about how Stephen Hawking could have managed to have children when we rounded the corner to find a couple most amused to have overheard such discussion in the middle of nowhere! Such is Life.

Tomorrow is Westward Ho! - Ho!pefully - and an explanation of the exclamation mark: the only town in the UK to have one. Stay tuned....

Peter