The River Dart and South Hams: Exploring One of Devon’s Most Beautiful Corners
The River Dart and the green folds of the South Hams have a way of sticking around in the country-lover’s memory. It is one of those landscapes that seems to reveal something new every time you return – whether you explore it on foot, by boat, by steam train or simply find somewhere beside the river to sit and watch the world go by.
I have been exploring and writing about this corner of South Devon for decades, covering everything from riverside walks and historic buildings to food festivals, villages, pubs and some of the more curious stories hidden in the landscape.
And there are plenty of those.
Exploring the River Dart
To understand the Dart, you have to appreciate its split personality.
Up on the moors, and down past Buckfastleigh, it behaves like a lively young river. But once it slips past the A38 it grows up fast. By the time it reaches Totnes – the lowest bridging point on the river – it has met saltwater, broadened, and come of age.
I was once told that an Act of Parliament forbids the building of bridges from the historic town all the way to the sea. Whether or not that is quite as simple as the story suggests, the practical result is certainly true: if you want to cross the lower Dart, you take to the water.
And what water it is.
Victorian excursionists called the lower reaches “The English Rhine”, and anyone who has enjoyed the classic river cruise between Totnes and Dartmouth will understand why.
Gliding downstream from Steamer Quay, you soon realise that you are travelling along a watery highway which effectively divides South Devon in two.
It is hard to believe that modern excursion boats can navigate some of those upper, shallow bends until you remember that big timber ships used to make their way right up to Baltic Wharf until comparatively recent decades. They had to carve a huge V-shaped turning space into the quay.
Below Baltic Wharf, the river begins to open out. You pass quiet corners such as Hole-in-the-Wall Creek and Fleet Mill Cove, where shelduck bob about, sometimes close to the rotting, mud-bound timbers of old vessels.
Then the river sweeps around Sharpham Point, where vineyards come almost down to the water, giving you the impression that you have somehow drifted into the Rhineland.
Tuckenhay and the River Dart
Off to the right, hidden along the wooded creek of Bow Creek, lies the historic hamlet of Tuckenhay.
Today herons and egrets occupy the places where 240-ton cargo coasters once berthed to load paper, cider and malting barley.
Tuckenhay also has an extraordinary claim to fame. In 1806 it had what is said to have been the first municipal gas lighting in the world, beating places such as London and Manchester – and presumably causing some irritation among the local smugglers, who had far more use for the ancient darkness of the tidal river.
Tuckenhay's riverside pub, The Maltsters Arms, was once run by the irrepressible, wine-swilling television pioneer Keith Floyd.
It remains a wonderful place to stop for a pint, a meal or a night beside the river, with its quayside setting, fires and rooms overlooking the creek.
Stoke Gabriel, Dittisham and Greenway
Back on the main river you enter what has been called “The Lake of the Dart” – a broad, still stretch of water.
During the Second World War, thousands of anti-invasion stakes were driven into the river bed to prevent German seaplanes from landing.
On the northern shore lies Stoke Gabriel, while down on the southern banks you will find Dittisham, a popular but difficult-to-reach riverside village where holiday homes now command eye-watering prices.
Across the water is Greenway, the former holiday home of Agatha Christie, surrounded by woodland and overlooking the river.
From Greenway, if you don't want simply to sit on the deck of a boat, you can walk the five-mile section of the Dart Valley Trail south to Kingswear.
It is a sheltered and scenic woodland walk, climbing over Oakham Hill with views across the estuary and its great bends before dropping into Long Wood, an ancient oak forest running along the river bank.
Every so often the peace is interrupted by the hoot of a steam locomotive emerging from the Greenway railway tunnel on the Paignton and Dartmouth line.
The Dart Round Robin
Talking of which, the Dart Round Robin remains one of the great Devon day trips.
The classic excursion combines a steam train journey along the Torbay coast and through the hills to Kingswear, the passenger ferry across the river to Dartmouth, a boat trip all the way back up the Dart to Totnes, and finally an open-top bus ride over the watershed.
It is difficult to imagine a more satisfying way of seeing so much of South Devon in a single day.
The route can be travelled in either direction, and timings vary according to the River Dart tides.
Dartmouth: the Queen of West Country Ports
And now, of course, we reach Dartmouth.
A quarter of a century ago, when writing a series about harbour towns across the peninsula, I described it as the “Queen of Westcountry ports”.
I think it still fits.
Dartmouth sits at the mouth of the estuary with a confidence all its own, overlooked by the Britannia Royal Naval College high on the hill.
But Dartmouth was not always so well presented.
Centuries ago it was a squalid little settlement clinging to the edge of mudflats and tidal salt marshes. What the Dutch did to Holland, the merchants of Dartmouth did to their own shoreline – gradually reclaiming the creeks and building grand merchant quarters on the new land.
The famous Butterwalk, built between 1635 and 1640 by Newfoundland merchant Mark Hawkins, stands on ground that had previously belonged to little more than reeds and mud.
You can still feel something of that prosperous history in the town centre at the Royal Castle Hotel, sitting beside the inner harbour.
Built in the 17th century, with its wonky floors and low beams, it has been carefully preserved. It is the sort of place where you can sit by the fire with a pint and watch ferries and fishing boats crossing the water.
Walking from Dartmouth to Dartmouth Castle
If you head out of town along Bayard's Cove, a four-mile walk leads along the waterfront to Dartmouth Castle.
Built in 1481, it was the first fortress in Britain specifically designed for artillery – the merchants' high-tech answer to protecting their increasingly valuable town.
From Blackstone Point, looking across towards Shooter Rock and the Mew Stone, you see one of the Dart's great secrets.
From the sea, the entrance to the river is almost invisible, hidden by the wooded cliffs.
Further west from Warren Point, the South West Coast Path offers views across Start Bay towards Slapton Sands, Torcross and the headland of Start Point.
Slapton Sands and Slapton Ley
Behind the shingle ridge of Slapton Sands is Slapton Ley, the largest natural freshwater lake in the Westcountry.
Walking along the Field Studies Council's wooden boardwalks through the reed beds can feel like being transported to the French Camargue.
There is soughing in the bulrushes, herons and egrets wade about in the shallows, and there are reminders of the people who once made their living here, including reed-cutters and sportsmen who came for the winter coot shoots.
The path leads inland to the village of Slapton, dominated by the ruined 14th-century chantry tower of Sir Guy de Brian – one of those buildings that looks slightly out of place in the modern landscape, like something from a Grimm fairy tale.
A South Devon landscape worth exploring slowly
I have spent enough time wandering through the South Hams over the years to know that this is not a part of Devon to rush.
The woodlands, tidal creeks, stone quays and hidden corners of the River Dart all have their own character. Some are best appreciated from the deck of a boat; others reveal themselves on foot, along the South West Coast Path or one of the many inland trails.
And then there are the pubs.
Which brings me to one of my particular favourites.
Raising a Glass to Peter at the Pig's Nose
Down at the southern tip of Devon, you will find the village of East Prawle and the Pig's Nose Inn, a place that occupies a special corner of my heart.
If I had to choose one pub to represent the eccentricity, warmth and unvarnished character of the Westcountry, it might well be this one.
The Pig's Nose is the sort of place that feels as though somebody forgot to tell it that the rest of the world was changing.
Its late landlord Peter was a one-off.
A former 1960s pop and rock road manager, he had hauled gear for everyone from Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich to The Searchers.
He bought the run-down inn with Lesley decades ago, knowing absolutely nothing about running a pub. Between them, they turned it into a place that became famous far beyond Devon – an Aladdin's cave of bric-a-brac, Heath Robinson beer-pulling contraptions and balls of wool for communal knitting.
There is also the legendary hall attached to the pub, which has hosted gigs with the kind of bands you would not normally expect to see in such a small, out-of-the-way venue.
Peter once told me he could never bear living in a normal house where people didn't drop in.
“It'd scare me – I'd end up putting a barrel in the front room and hoping someone would come to see me.”
The Pig's Nose remains a monument to that spirit, and my thoughts are with Lesley as she keeps the fires burning with her son Joss.
Planning a River Dart day trip
The Dart Round Robin is one of the easiest ways to experience several different sides of South Devon in a single day.
The route combines:
Steam train between Paignton and Kingswear
Passenger ferry to and from Dartmouth
River cruise between Dartmouth and Totnes
Bus link between Totnes and Paignton
It can be done in either direction.
The service normally operates on selected dates from late March through late October, with schedules varying according to the River Dart tides.
For current timetables, fares and booking information, check the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company before travelling.
My South Devon memories
There are parts of the West Country that I return to again and again, and the River Dart and South Hams are firmly among them.
Perhaps that is because the landscape has so many different personalities. There is the bustling harbour at Dartmouth, the quiet creeks around The Maltsters Arms at Tuckenhay, the vineyards at Sharpham, the wooded slopes around Greenway, the open sweep of Start Bay and the extraordinary wildlife of Slapton Ley.
You can explore it by boat, train, car or on foot.
But however you travel, the same thing keeps drawing you back: the feeling that around the next bend in the river, or beyond the next Devon hedge, there will be another little piece of the Westcountry waiting to be discovered.
