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dartmouth |
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South of Torbay, and eight miles downstream from Totnes, DARTMOUTH
has thrived since the Normans recognized the potential of this deepwater
port for trading with their home country, and today its activities
embrace fishing, freight and a booming leisure industry - as well as the
education of the senior service's officer class at the Royal Naval
College, built at the start of this century on a hill overlooking the
port. (Coming from Torbay, visitors to Dartmouth can save time and a
long detour through Totnes by using the frequent ferries from Kingswear).
Behind the enclosed boat basin at the heart of town stands Dartmouth's
most photographed building, the four-storey Butterwalk , built in the
seventeenth century for a local merchant. Richly decorated with wood
carvings, the timber-framed construction looks precarious as it
overhangs the street on eleven granite columns. This arcade now holds
shops and Dartmouth's small museum (Mon-Sat: April-Sept 11am-4.30pm;
Oct-March noon-3pm; £1.50), mainly devoted to maritime curios, including
old maps, prints and models of ships. Nearby St Saviour's , rebuilt in
the 1630s from a fourteenth-century church, has long been a landmark for
boats sailing upriver. The building stands at the head of Higher Street,
the old town's central thoroughfare and the site of another tottering
medieval structure, the Cherub inn. More impressive is Agincourt House
on the parallel Lower Street, built by a merchant after the battle for
which it is named, then restored in the seventeenth century and again in
the twentieth.
Lower Street leads down to Bayard's Cove , a short cobbled quay lined
with well-restored eighteenth-century houses, where the Pilgrim Fathers
touched en route to the New World. A twenty-minute walk from here along
the river takes you to Dartmouth Castle (April-Sept daily 10am-6pm; Oct
daily 10am-5pm; Nov-March Wed-Sun 10am-1pm & 2-4pm; £3.20; EH), one of
two fortifications on opposite sides of the estuary. The site includes
coastal defence works from the nineteenth century and from World War II,
though the main interest is in the fifteenth-century castle, the first
in England to be constructed specifically to withstand artillery. The
castle was never actually tested in action, and consequently is
excellently preserved. If you don't relish the return walk, you can take
advantage of a ferry back to town, leaving roughly every fifteen minutes
from Easter to October (£1).
Continuing south along the coastal path brings you through the pretty
hilltop village of Stoke Fleming to Blackpool Sands (45min from the
castle), the best and most popular beach in the area. The unspoilt cove,
flanked by steep, wooded cliffs, was the site of a battle in 1404 in
which Devon archers repulsed a Breton invasion force sent to punish the
privateers of Dartmouth for their raiding across the Channel.
From Dartmouth there are regular ferries across the river to Kingswear ,
terminus of the Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway . There are also
various summer cruises from Dartmouth's quay up the River Dart to Totnes
(1hr 15min; £7 return); this is the best way to see the river's deep
creeks and the various houses overlooking the river, among them the
Royal Naval College and Greenway House , birthplace of Walter Raleigh's
three seafaring half-brothers, the Gilberts, and later rebuilt for
Agatha Christie.
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