Lost lanes West Country by Jack Thurston sample by Wild Things Publishing

passion for exploring the British countryside by bike, and is the author of the best-selling Lost Lanes Southern England and Lost Lanes Wales. As presenter of The Bike Show podcast he has brought his affable and infectious enthusiasm for cycling to a worldwide audience, with more than 5 million podcast downloads. Jack’s articles about cycling have appeared in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and many cycling magazines.

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

JACK THURSTON takes you on a freewheeling tour of the lost lanes and forgotten byways of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Avon and Wiltshire. In 36 rides, from gentle spins to weekend camping adventures, follow traffic-free paths along rivers and the coast, explore ancient trackways across chalk downs, and climb the windswept heights of Dartmoor and Exmoor. Combining engaging travelogue with stunning photography LOST LANES WEST will enthral armchair explorers, ardent mileeaters and families on two wheels.

LOST LANES WEST

JACK THURSTON has a life-long

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES WEST will take

you on a meandering tour of the most beautiful places in England’s West Country. This latest addition to the best-selling series of cycling guidebooks provides: • Route overviews and maps • Overnight stops, from B&Bs to camping under the stars • Best pubs and cafés • Wild swims, breathtaking views and fascinating history • How to access the rides by train (no car required!) So take off on a trip along wild seashores, beside sparkling rivers and streams, past historic treasure houses and through charming villages. See it all from the best vantage point of all: the humble yet extraordinary transport of delights, the bicycle.

If you like LOST LANES WEST you might also enjoy these other books by Wild Things Publishing:

swimming NEW from the publishers of swimming

JACK THURSTON

swimming

MOBILE DEVICES & DOWNLOADS

All the routes are supported by downloadable route instructions plus a GPX navigation file for your GPS or smartphone.

£16.99

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

LOST LANES WEST

JACK THURSTON has a life-long

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES WEST will take

If you like LOST LANES WEST you might also enjoy these other books by Wild Things Publishing:

swimming NEW from the publishers of swimming

JACK THURSTON

swimming

MOBILE DEVICES & DOWNLOADS

All the routes are supported by downloadable route instructions plus a GPX navigation file for your GPS or smartphone.

£16.99

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

LOST LANES WEST

JACK THURSTON has a life-long

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES WEST will take

If you like LOST LANES WEST you might also enjoy these other books by Wild Things Publishing:

swimming NEW from the publishers of swimming

JACK THURSTON

swimming

MOBILE DEVICES & DOWNLOADS

All the routes are supported by downloadable route instructions plus a GPX navigation file for your GPS or smartphone.

£16.99

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

LOST LANES WEST

JACK THURSTON has a life-long

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES WEST will take

If you like LOST LANES WEST you might also enjoy these other books by Wild Things Publishing:

swimming NEW from the publishers of swimming

JACK THURSTON

swimming

MOBILE DEVICES & DOWNLOADS

All the routes are supported by downloadable route instructions plus a GPX navigation file for your GPS or smartphone.

£16.99

LOST LANES 36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES

CONTENTS Map of the Rides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Rides at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 In Search of Lost Lanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Matter of The West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Practicalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 THE SELECTION Best for Bike Overnights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Best for Gourmets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Best for Weekends Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Best for Ups and Downs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Best for History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Best for Arts and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Best for Wild Swimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Best for Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Best for Pubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Best for Natural Wonders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 THE COUNTIES Wiltshire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Dorset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Somerset & Avon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Devon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Cornwall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Organised Rides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

WILTSHIRE Page 01 Travels in a Strange Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 02 On Salisbury Plain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 03 The Old Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 04 Wildflowers and Watchtowers . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 05 Wool Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 DORSET 06 The Thrills of the Chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 07 Around the Purbecks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 08 Dorset Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 09 Hardyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 SOMERSET & AVON 10 M5 Pastoral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 11 Lakes, Lead and Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 12 Waterworld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 13 The Road to Camelot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 14 In Pursuit of Edward Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

15 Grand Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 16 A Rural Ramble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 17 A Passage to Porlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

BODMIN

DEVON 18 East Devon Escapade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

N E W Q UAY

19 Surf and Turf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 20 To the Edge of the Moor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

T RU RO

21 Violets and Viaducts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 22 Sea to Summit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

23 Widecombe Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 24 Tour of Dartmoor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 25 The Dart Circular . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 CORNWALL 26 Cliff and Citadel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 27 Granite Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 28 Fowey Ahoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 29 Falmouth Hinterland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 30 Promised Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 8

PENZANCE

B R I S TO L 10 5

B AT H 4

MINEHEAD

F RO M E

17 22

B A R N S TA P L E

S A L I S B U RY

TAU N TO N

C R E D I TO N

POOLE

EXMOUTH

WEYMOUTH

24 25

TO R Q UAY

P LY M O U T H

THE RIDES

MAP 9

IN SEARCH OF

LOST LANES T

here was a time when I would cycle to Cornwall every summer from my home in London, to join friends in a holiday cottage on the beach. Each year I took a slightly different route, staying overnight with people I knew along the way, or just sleeping out in the open. My journeys all began with a hectic escape through London’s suburbs and its orbital belt of commuter towns, retail parks and industrial estates. The first real taste of the West came with the sight of the chalk downs that fan out from Salisbury Plain. The signs are clear: a thatched cottage, an Iron Age hill fort, sheep grazing on an improbably steep hillside, a pub where the landlord pulls mahogany-brown pints of Wadworth 6X, from the big red-brick brewery in Devizes. The West was beckoning. The Wessex downs are graceful outlines beneath an expansive sky. Cycling across this sparse, pared-down landscape, I get a feeling of exposure, and a sense of being in a narrow realm sandwiched between the vast, dense mass of chalk below me and an infinity of sky above. Prehistoric burial mounds dot the horizon. Some are just soft bumps in the ground, others are covered by thick copses of trees. There are standing stones: some alone, others arranged in lines or circles, the relics of a deep and long-forgotten past. Overhead, the slow, low propeller thrum of a dark green, snub-nosed Hercules flying back to base. The hiss and swish of a field of barley swayed by the wind, like a golden sea. Sometimes there is nobody for miles, just me and the song of my wheels on the road. The simplicity of my journey would take root as all other concerns faded away. I was beginning to unwind. There is no easy way to cycle to Cornwall, and the going gets harder with each mile of westward travel. One year I followed the chalk downs all the

way to West Dorset and then took a southern route along the coast. It looked oh so very inviting on the map. I had sunny visions of ice cream on the beach, a pint of bitter and a crab sandwich in a pub garden overlooking a summer-blue sea. Somehow, I failed to bargain for the climbing, which in this part of the West Country is unrelenting. As I rode up one long, draggy hill after another I cursed my choice. The next year I plotted a more sensible inland route through the gentle farmland of the Blackmore Vale, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Vale of the Little Dairies’ in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Another year, I went further north, via the flat, straight roads over the peat moors and rhynes of the Somerset Levels. But dodging the hills only got me so far. South of Taunton, the dark line of the Blackdown ridge looms unavoidable. Devon is rich red earth, low-slung cottages, and high-banked lanes that twist and turn in any way but straight lines. To cross Dartmoor’s windswept granite heights I would follow a single lonely thread of tarmac into the distance, the song of a skylark overhead. Compared to comely Devon, the Cornish scene is harder and more astringent, a challenge to the legs and to the senses. At last, physically spent, I’d join the gentle throng of families on the Camel Trail bike path to Padstow. After a pint by the quay, it was time to engage my lowest gear for one last climb over the headland and down into Constantine Bay. There, on the Atlantic shore, I’d look west to the setting sun. Before me was nothing but thousands of miles of ocean. It usually took me four full days. By train, it’s a just a few hours. My average speed on those summer rides to Cornwall was about twelve miles an hour. It sounds very slow but by historical standards, the bicycle is pretty quick. It’s four times walking pace and double the speed of a horse-drawn carriage. 13

Caption

It is only in comparison with travelling by train, car or plane that cycling seems slow. The bicycle, and only the bicycle, combines speed, efficiency and freedom with a total immersion in the world around us. Riding through the sun, the wind and the rain, every sight, sound and smell is as vivid and immediate as it can be. Cyclists experience the landscape with a detail and definition that is just a blur when travelling by car or by train. As Ernest Hemingway puts it, “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them”. And how much country there is to get to know! Britain’s rural lanes comprise as much as a third of the entire length of the road network. The story of these lanes, capped in just a thin veneer of tarmac, is the story of Britain itself, from Neolithic trackways to Roman military roads and medieval pilgrims’ trails. Most common of all are the timeless, often nameless lanes which have seen nothing but the unremarkable and unrecorded to-ing and fro-ing of daily life. Over countless years, these everyday journeys have worn their way into the landscape. Whenever I ride down a dark, wooded holloway or 14

follow a chalk-white scar that strikes out across the downs, I can’t help thinking of all the feet, hooves and wheels that have passed this way before me. A road is for travelling between places, but a lane is a place in itself. Lined by flower-studded verges and venerable hedgerows, twisting through shady woods and bright green pastures, lanes follow rivers, cross clifftops, and pass by cottages and farms, pubs and churches. Rarely taking the most direct route, a lane instead invites us to travel at the speed of the land. In a hectic and stressful world, they are superhighways for the soul. I have felt the powerful call of the West all my life. The rides in this book represent the very best of the West Country, following its lost lanes, forgotten byways, peaceful canal towpaths, and wilder off-road tracks. Each route offers unlimited opportunities for improvisation and alteration, as no two bike rides need ever be the same. I hope you enjoy the rides and make them your own by dreaming up your own detours and diversions and, along the way, discover your very own Lost Lanes. Jack Thurston

MAPS AND N AVI GATI ON M A PS A N D E L E VAT I ON P ROF I L E S The maps in the book are at a scale of just over 1:180,000. Therefore 1 cm on the map is about 1.8 km on the road and 1 inch on the map is about 3 miles. On the elevation profiles 1 cm is about 150 metres of climbing and 1 inch is about 1,250 feet. L E AV E T H E BO OK AT H OM E This is a heavy book, and the last thing anyone would want to do is carry it around for a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cycling. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why all the information needed to ride the routes is available on the Lost Lanes website. As well as the maps in the book, there are Ordnance Survey maps, printable route sheets with turn-by-turn directions are available online. There are also GPX files for use with GPS navigation devices. The table on page 10 provides a website address for each ride where these resources can be found.

B E F O R E YO U G O

T H E M AT T E R O F T H E W E S T

You can see a long way from the top of an Iron Age hill fort. It’s a vantage point that throws the interwoven threads of history and geography into sharp relief. One May evening I rode my bike up Solsbury Hill, just outside Bath, and spent the night there. As I lay on its grassy ramparts, cocooned in my sleeping bag, I wondered what the people who lived on this hill long ago would think of it now? What would they make of the sodium glow of the city’s lights, the moving trails of cars, and the planes flying overhead? And what would it be like to see this place as it was back then, in the darkness of an Iron Age night under the glittering arc of the Milky Way? And what would we make of each other? It’s been 10,000 years since people reinhabited the British Isles after the end of the last Ice Age. Imagine a time-lapse sequence that begins with the great thaw. From the desolate tundra grows a dense forest. Nomadic hunter-gatherers arrive, take up farming, begin felling the trees and building the very first homes. The Romans come and go. Then Germanic tribes settle, push Celtic Britons into the west, fight off marauding Danes, and build their England of villages and fields. Conquering Norsemen from across the English Channel erect stone churches and manor houses, and raise huge flocks of sheep. Elizabethan exuberance and Georgian elegance darken into the grimy, Caption soot-blackened towns and cities of the industrial revolution as a spider’s web of new roads, canals, railways covers the land. With a story like that, is there any need to dwell on the myths and legends of the West Country? Did Joseph of Arimathea actually bring the Holy Grail to Glastonbury? Did King Arthur really travel to Bodmin Moor to meet the Lady of the Lake and pull his sword out of a stone? Does a pack of baying 16

hellhounds roam the windblown wastes of Dartmoor, for real? Are bona fide pixies hiding away in shady Cornish dingles? Who knows? Luckily, the realities of the West Country are even more compelling than all the ancient mysteries. W H AT LIES BENEAT H To begin at the beginning, with the rocks beneath our feet. From my overnight perch on Solsbury Hill it is a short hop across the Avon valley to a hamlet that two centuries ago was the home of a man regarded as the father of English geology. William Smith was a blacksmith’s son who worked as a mineral engineer and surveyor in Somerset’s mines, canals and quarries. It was in a mine near Bath where Smith first noticed that rock was arranged in layers with a particular sequence. He became obsessed with these layers, or strata, and though largely self-taught and often strapped for cash, Smith set about making the first ever geological map of England and Wales As an anatomy of the landscape, it’s an extraordinary thing to look at. Its colourful

Burton Bradstock

sweeps and swirls confirm that, for the variety and complexity of its geology, no other part of Britain is a match for the West Country. There’s sandstone as old as half a billion years; there’s granite thrust up from below the earth’s crust; and there are dozens of variations of limestone, from the rough, eroded karst of the Mendips to the rich, golden stone of Ham Hill, and the bright white flint-bearing chalk downs of Wessex. Geology underpins every aspect of the landscape, and of life itself: the shape of hills; the flow of rivers; the fertility of the soil and the kind of ecology and farming it can support; and the materials available for building and mining. Smith’s map changed the world. If you were looking to find coal, valuable ores or building stone, here was a map that told you where to dig. Smith’s great insight had been to recognise that rock strata all have their own unique signature of fossilised sea shells, which can be used to identify and sequence them. Fifty miles south of Bath, the tall, crumbling mudstone cliffs near Lyme Regis are packed with

such fossils. And just as William Smith was drawing up his new map, a young Dorset girl named Mary Anning was discovering just how strange and terrifying were the prehistoric creatures that swam in the warm, shallow seas that once covered England. Mary’s parents scratched out a meagre living collecting fossils to sell as curiosities, and drafted their children in to help. Aged just twelve, Mary and her brother uncovered the first ever complete Ichthyosaurus, a terrifying sea monster six and half metres long, with the body-shape of a dolphin, two huge squid-like eyes and the long jaws of a crocodile. Mary Anning became astonishingly good at a job that was both difficult and dangerous. Storms were the best time to hunt, as landslips opened up the cliffs and revealed new finds. One of these was the skeleton of a Plesiosaurus, a three-metre-long aquatic reptile with a large rotund body, a very long neck and a tiny head. As a poor, uneducated, working-class woman Annning was even more of an outsider than William Smith. Yet her knowledge matched the most eminent geologists and collectors of the day, who 17

B E F O R E YO U G O

Practicalities

ROUT E S A N D M A PS The rides in this book range from 25 to 65 miles but most are around the 35 to 50 mile mark, which for most people is a good distance for a leisurely day’s ride, or a half-day ride for the energetic. I’ve deliberately refrained from adding timing to the rides, as it’s better to ride at one’s own pace than somebody else’s. However, based on a typical touring pace of 10 to 12 miles per hour, allowing for hills, most rides require about 4 to 6 hours in the saddle. If, like me, your idea of a good day out on the bike includes taking time to visit all the interesting places along the way, stopping for a long and lingering pub lunch, a cream tea, a river dip and an afternoon nap, then ending the day by scrambling up to an Iron Age hill fort to watch the sunset, you may want to split the longer rides over a couple of days. To this end, I’ve recommended good places to spend the night, along with the listings of recommended pubs, cafés and bike shops. A night in a historic coaching inn or a boutique B&B is lovely, but some of my best bike overnights were spent out in the open, tucked up in a bivvy bag looking up at the Milky Way. Much of the West Country is hilly and the further west you go the hillier it gets. This may come as a shock to people used to the flatter lands in the east of England. Wherever possible I’ve tried to go around hills rather than over them, but the road often does go up. This will have an impact on the time it takes to ride a certain distance and the basic level of fitness required for some of the hillier rides. I’ve indicated the total amount of climbing on each ride, which should give a clue as to how hilly it is; the elevation profiles may also help. If the hills get too much, there’s absolutely no shame in walking. In the very early days of the Tour de 26

France, most riders – including the winners of the race – pushed their heavy bikes up the biggest mountains. The maps in the book are best used in combination with a good paper map, such as the Ordnance Survey’s 1:50,000 Landranger series. The cost of buying them does add up, but they can be borrowed from most public libraries or viewed and printed online from bing.com/maps or gpxeditor. co.uk. The Ordnance Survey’s smartphone app and third-party apps like Viewranger or Memory-Map are a viable alternative to paper maps. Download base maps to your phone so that you’re not relying on having a data connection while riding. As well as the outline maps in the book, there are printable route sheets and GPS navigation files for each ride available online. The table on page 10 gives a web address for each ride where these resources can be found. G P S NAV IGAT IO N GPS navigation is less good for exploring and improvising than a paper map but it excels when following a preplanned route, assuming the batteries don’t run out. Cycling-oriented GPS units will alert you if you make a wrong turn and, as well as a little map, the more modern models will give you an elevation profile so you know where the hills are coming up. For each ride in the book (except the organised group rides) the web page above includes a GPX file for use in a GPS navigation device or smartphone. For plotting new routes for GPS navigation I recommend ridewithgps.com, bikehike.co.uk and gpxeditor.co.uk as all include a full selection of map sources and satellite imagery, and have simple, intuitive interfaces. Ridewithgps.com has very good integration with the most modern GPS devices.

Garmin has long been the market leader in cycling GPS devices but I’ve had good experiences with a Wahoo ELEMNT device while researching this book. Smartphones also provide GPS navigation and the Ride With GPS app is a good one to try. I tend to switch my phone to Airplane mode to conserve battery. It is always worth carrying spare batteries and/or a charging pack. TA K E T H E T R A I N I have tried to make the rides accessible by train but the railway service in parts of the West Country is by no means comprehensive. Two Together railcards offer big savings, as do Small Group tickets for groups of three or more. Breaking a return journey is a good way to get more value from a single fare and most rail companies allow unlimited breaking of an open return journey, including overnight breaks, so long as the ticket is still valid (they are usually valid for one month). Trains tend to have between two and six dedicated bicycle spaces and booking in advance is the best way to secure a stress-free journey and avoid disappointment. Great Western Railway now requires cycle reservations on its inter-city routes. Some train companies restrict access to trains during

certain peak weekday commuting times, when most trains are at their busiest. If the train already has its full complement of bikes, or if you’ve not made a reservation, a pleading look and heartfelt gratitude can work wonders. Train conductors are human after all. ANY KIND O F BIKE The rides in this book can be ridden on any bike that’s in good mechanical order and the right size for the rider. Low gearing makes climbing hills much less daunting. A triple chainring and/or at least a 30-tooth rear sprocket is recommended. Tyre choice makes a huge difference to the sensation of riding a bike. Good quality tyres between 28mm and 40mm in diameter are a sensible all-round choice for a fast and comfortable ride. Avoid really knobbly tyres as they slow you down on surfaced roads. A touring bike is an ideal choice: the Dawes Galaxy has always been a good place to start but a new breed of crossover and adventure bikes are perfect if you’re travelling light and want more of a road bike feel. These bikes have the lightweight feel of a road bike but with disc brakes that perform well in all weathers, nice wide tyres and all the fittings for racks and mudguards if required. 27

P R AC T I C A L I T I E S The influence of the Atlantic Ocean guarantees the West Country gets more rain than eastern Britain. Check the forecast at the Met Office website (or the smartphone app) and be prepared to ride accordingly. It’s no fun pushing on through a monsoon; better to take cover until the storm passes, as they usually do. Unless it’s the middle of a heatwave, I consider mudguards an essential item: it’s bad enough being rained on from above; it’s worse to have a jet of mucky water sprayed up from below. L IG HT S , L O C K S A ND L U G G AG E When riding in the dark, a set of lights is a legal requirement. Good lights are well worth the money and modern battery-powered LED lights are nothing short of amazing. On dark country lanes, supplementing lights with reflective material is a good idea. Dynamo lighting is making a revival and there are special adaptors to use the power from a hub dynamo to keep phones, GPS devices and camera batteries topped up. In the countryside, a lock is often unnecessary but can be a good precaution, especially if you plan to leave your bicycle unattended for any length of time. A small cable is enough to deter an opportunist, but in cities or large towns where professional bike thieves may be lurking it makes sense to pack a heavier, more secure lock. If riding in a group, a single lock can secure several bikes. Money, a basic tool kit, a snack and a mobile phone can be stuffed into a very small rucksack, bumbag or in the rear pockets of a cycling jersey. Anything heavier is more comfortable if carried on the bicycle itself, in either a handlebar bag, a saddlebag or a pannier. CL OT H I N G A N D S H OE S In spite of the images of Lycra-clad racers presented in magazines and on television, the overwhelming majority of people in the world who ride bikes do so in perfectly ordinary clothing. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with indulging a taste for the latest cycling gear and donning a cycling uniform of one kind or another but the reality is that whatever clothing is comfortable for a walk in the park will be fine for riding a bike in the countryside for a few hours. 28

Having said that, tight jeans with raised seams can be uncomfortable on longer rides. Padded shorts or underwear provide extra comfort if needed. In heavy rain, thick cotton and denim gets waterlogged, won’t keep you warm and takes longer to dry than wool and synthetic fibres. Riding in the rain isn’t much fun but lightweight, breathable waterproof fabrics like Gore-Tex are wonderful when compared to old-style plastic pac-a-macs. Many cyclists – including weightconscious racers – still swear by lightweight nylon capes that keep the rain out while allowing air to flow underneath, thus avoiding the ‘boil in the bag’ syndrome of a fully sealed garment. For night rides and camping trips, a few extra layers are a good idea as well as a warm hat. In cold weather, thick, windproof gloves keep fingers nice and warm. Cycling-specific shoes are unnecessary for all but the most speed-conscious racers, but if you like them I’m not going to argue. The way I see it, large, flat pedals with good grip mean I can wear almost any type of shoe. People have cycled many miles in sandals, flip flops, espadrilles, loafers, wellington boots, high-heeled sneakers and blue suede shoes. W H E N T H INGS GO W RO NG Compared to running a car, the cost of maintaining a bicycle, even if all the work is done by a professional bike mechanic, is tiny. Assuming the bicycle is in generally good mechanical order, the skills and tools necessary to mend a puncture and fix a dropped chain are enough to guarantee self-sufficiency on day rides. A truly worst-case scenario means phoning for a taxi to the nearest train station. A basic on-the-road repair kit consists of the following: • Tyre levers, a pump and a couple of spare inner tubes • A puncture repair kit • Screwdrivers and allen keys required for removing wheels, adjusting brakes and tightening the rack, mudguard fittings and seat-post clamp • A few cable ties (zip ties) can come in handy, and a bungee cord is useful for securing bikes on trains

P R AC T I C A L I T I E S Learning a little about how a bike works not only saves money but comes with a warm glow of selfsufficiency. Some tasks are best left to a professional, but the basics are easily mastered. If there’s nobody around to give a hands-on lesson, buy a bike maintenance book or look online for instructional videos, such as those by Patrick Field of the London School of Cycling available at madegood.org. RI D I N G S A FE A N D S OU N D Riding a safe distance (at least 1.5m/5ft) from the roadside and any parked cars is much safer than hugging the kerb. Making eye contact with other road users helps everyone get along. On roads, it is cyclists who suffer most from the boorish attitude that ‘might makes right’ and we should be at pains to preserve the civility of traffic-free paths shared with walkers, skaters and horse riders. Be aware that other people are out enjoying themselves too and may not be paying full attention. Approach horse riders with caution and a verbal greeting to let the beast know that you’re human. When leading group rides with slower or less experienced cyclists, rather than speed off and leave the group trailing in your wake, aim to ride at a pace that’s no faster than the slowest riders can comfortably manage. CLU B S A N D O R G A N I S AT I ON S Membership of Cycling UK (CUK), British Cycling or your local cycling campaign group not only helps these worthy organisations campaign on behalf of cyclists, it also brings benefits like discounts in bike shops, member magazines, thirdparty insurance and free legal advice in the very unlikely event of an accident. Most local cycling groups have full programmes of free or very nearly free rides, which are a great way of discovering new places and meeting new people, with an experienced ride leader taking care of all the navigation and planning tea and lunch stops. There are also strong online communities of cyclists. The CUK forum brims with expert touring and technical advice. Yet Another Cycling Forum leans towards the audax side of things, and there’s

also the Bear Bones Bikepacking forum for off-road adventures. All are all lively places to look for advice and to find out about rides, routes and events. The National Trust and English Heritage maintain hundreds of amazing properties across the country, but entry fees can be high if you’re just making a fleeting visit while out for a day’s bike ride. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys visiting historic buildings and sumptuous gardens, an annual membership makes sense and all funds help contribute to the upkeep of their wonderful properties. Similarly, the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and Plantlife are member-funded charities that do important work conserving and restoring the natural environment and maintain some superb nature reserves. Finally, another way to immerse yourself in all things bicycle is to listen to The Bike Show, the long-running cycling podcast that I present (thebikeshow.net). 29

BEST FOR

B I K E OV E R N I G H T S

Many of the routes in this book could be used as the basis for a short overnight trip with a bivvy bag or lightweight tent. They’re best on a long summer evening when there’s plenty of time to ride for a few hours, find a remote and beautiful spot and enjoy a simple camp dinner before settling down to a night under the stars, safe in the knowledge that you’ll be returning to ‘civilisation’ the next day. There’s no need for all the stressful preparation and packing for a longer trip. If you forget something, it’s no big deal. The worst that can happen is a bad night’s sleep. Rather than cook an elaborate camp dinner, I tend to fill a Thermos flask with something hot and hearty, and perhaps boil water for couscous and a hot drink on a lightweight camping stove; packing a loaf of bread means the stove can be left behind altogether. Perhaps the biggest challenge on an overnight trip is carrying enough water, though on Dartmoor and Exmoor you can usually find a clean stream (pack a portable filter or sterilisation tablets if you want to be doubly safe). Two to three litres of water per person allows for drinking plenty while riding, some for cooking in the evening and enough for tea or coffee in the morning. If you do run dry, most pubs will be happy to refill your bottles. Or just knock at a door. There’s nothing more relaxing than sitting out under the night sky, well fed and chatting with friends, feeling the cool night breeze with no more disturbance than an owl hooting in the woods and sheep bleating in the valley below. The cares of real life are left far behind. Then again, maybe this is the real life and it’s the office that’s the illusion? 30

D O IT YO UR SELF A little preparation is helpful in identifying a good overnight camping spot. Look at the Ordnance Survey’s 1:25,000 (Explorer) maps together with satellite imagery to get an idea of the terrain (they’re both available online at bing.com/maps). The best spots are on open uplands or in woods, well out of sight of any dwellings, preferably with access from a bridleway or footpath. It’s worth taking a little time on day rides to scout out potential camping spots and make a note of the location for a future trip. If you have camped near a footpath or bridleway, or on the outskirts of a town or village, it’s prudent to camp a little way away, out of sight of early morning dog walkers. A tent adds weight and can make you more conspicuous, but it gives a sense of security and more protection from the elements and flying insects. Sleeping in a hammock or under a tarp is an interesting alternative to a tent or a bivvy bag. It comes down to a matter of taste: some find hammocks uncomfortable, others dislike the confinement of a tent. Though wild camping is broadly legal in Scotland, the only part of England where it is legal is on large swathes of Dartmoor National Park. The national park’s website has a map showing where the permitted areas are. You need to be at least 100 metres from any road and mustn’t stay more than two consecutive nights. Elsewhere, it’s at your own risk. Either ask for permission from the landowner or take the pragmatic view that if you’re unseen and leave no trace, the landowner is unlikely ever to know, or to care, that you’ve spent the night. Often it’s difficult to find out who the landowner is and it’s easier to ask for forgiveness afterwards than to seek permission in advance.

B E S T F O R B I K E OV E R N I G H T S If there’s a No Camping sign, think twice. Arrive late and leave early. Be sure not to disturb any livestock or trample any crops or sensitive wildlife habitats and definitely don’t light a fire without permission. Better still, leave the site in a better state than you found it by collecting any litter left by other visitors. Most landowners are more concerned about long-term squatters or car-campers leaving litter than people travelling light with their bikes. The following rides are particularly well suited for adapting into a wild camping trip. TRAV E L S I N A S T R A N G E L AN D (RIDE N o.1 ) People have been travelling on the Ridgeway for at least 5,000 years, probably a lot longer. This makes it a pretty profound place to unfurl a bivvy bag and drift off to sleep looking up at the twinkling stars above. The Marlborough Downs, a couple of miles out on the bridleway going east of Avebury, is one possible spot. Another, further on in the ride, is on the steep scarp edge just south of the village of Heddington where there’s a good pub. WIL D FL OW E R S A ND WAT C H TOW E R S (RIDE N o.4 ) This ride includes a long stretch of the Imber Range Perimeter Path, a little-used gravel track around a 32-square-mile military training area and firing range on Salisbury Plain. It’s high up and there are some great views. If camping out, be sure to stay on the north side of the track and definitely don’t enter any land with Danger Area notices or red flags. IN P U R S U I T O F E DWAR D T H OM AS (RIDE N o.1 4 ) The bridleway along the crest of the Quantock Hills offers plenty of discreet places to spend the night. It’s a popular walking, horse riding and mountain biking trail so be sure not to stay on the track itself and, as ever, arrive late and leave early. The western side has the steeper edge and the better views. The sunsets can be sublime.

Always obtain permission before lighting fires

TO TH E EDGE O F T H E MO O R (R I DE No.20) Wild camping is legal on Dartmoor, and to the south of Belstone there is a choice of windswept uplands with big views (a track leads from the village to Scarey Tor) or more sheltered spots in the wooded valley of the River Taw. The army sometimes uses the open moorland as a training area, so look out for any red flags or flashing red beacons. W I DECO MBE WAY ( R IDE No.23) This Dartmoor ride has plenty of legal camping options. Perhaps the best is near the Grimspound Bronze Age settlement: either just past it on the flat saddle, or up on Hambledown or Hookney Tors on either side. The bridleway from the road crosses a stream handy for water. There are also good options on the hills around Widecombe, though the terrain is not the flattest. TOUR O F DA RT MO O R ( R IDE No.24) Again, this being Dartmoor, there are plenty of good legal options. The old Princetown Railway is now an excellent gravel cycle path, and offers an easy way to find a west-facing spot away from the road. Just keep an eye out for any escaped convicts. Also, a mile west of Two Bridge on the B3357, on the bridleway heading north, are some spots handy for after an evening at the pub.

BEST FOR

GOURMETS

The West Country has the sunshine, the mild climate, the rich pastures and a long coastline, so it’s no wonder food plays a central role in its regional identity. Cheddar cheese, cider, clotted cream and apple cake are all signature foods of the West Country but it’s at the level of the county that pride in local goods gets its fullest expression: nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg and tangy Dorset Blue Vinney, Wiltshire bacon and Devonshire ham, fragrant Cornish saffron cake and Jane Austen’s beloved Bath buns. Some delicacies are not for the faint of heart. Hog’s pudding – pork meat, offal, flour, currants, herbs and spices combined into an oversized sausage – is a kind of West Country haggis. Wallfish is the Mendip dialect term for common snails harvested from the limestonerubble field walls that criss-cross the plateau. Many West Country dishes have a real story to tell: Cheddar is the product of the tradition of cooperative dairying in the Somerset Levels; without it they’d never have had enough milk needed to produce such huge, round cheeses. The pasty, though not invented in Cornwall, was taken up by Cornish tin miners and quarrymen as a complete meal that could be eaten without cutlery. Food debates rage. Should a pasty be side-crimped or top-crimped? Which goes on the scone first, the jam or the clotted cream? (Answer: in Devon it’s cream first, then jam; in Cornwall it’s jam first, then cream.) A vibrant food culture depends on sustainable farming and high quality ingredients, and clued-up customers who value small-scale, ethical production. Today’s food artisans are perfecting local traditions, unearthing lost dishes and experimenting with new fusions, and no more so 34

than in Bristol’s booming local food ecosystem of specialist restaurants and pop-up cafés, and in East Devon’s foodie triangle between Exeter, Honiton and Lyme Regis. No one benefits from the current food renaissance more than the touring cyclist, who can eat and drink everything and then work it all off on the bike. More than that, cyclists are best-placed to understand what the French call ‘terroir’: the unique combination of climate, soil, topography and tradition that is the secret of the very best local foods. E AST DEVO N ESC A PA DE ( R IDE No.18) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has put the Axe valley on the foodie map, and part of his River Cottage empire is an industrial-chic canteen in Axminster. The Pig at Combe is a hip country house hotel where food and drink are front and centre, much of it from their own walled kitchen garden. People travel far to shop at the Rousdon Village Bakery, while the ice cream at Furzeleigh Down Dairy is bettered only by the view. S U RF A ND T UR F ( R IDE No.19) Rockfish is a small West Country chain that’s reinventing fish and chips for the 21st century – there’s a branch in Exmouth. 50 Degrees North, a beach shack at Budleigh Salterton, does a mean crab sandwich. For the best cream teas in the Otter valley, the very traditional Southern Cross Tea Rooms in Newton Poppleford vies with Otterton Mill, a historic and still-working watermill. Dinner at the Five Bells Inn in Clyst Hydon is worth making this ride an overnighter, else head for meaty delights and ‘experimental’ beers and spirits at the Fat Pig in Exeter.

Caption

G R A N I T E K I N G D OM (R I D E N o. 2 7 ) Fresh from the Sea in Port Isaac is a fish shop and café specialising in local, sustainable seafood (eat in or take away for a picnic), while chef Chris Lanyon of the Chapel Café was crowned king of the fish finger sandwich in a recent national competition. Finish off the ride with a cream tea beneath the apple trees at the Camel Trail Tea Garden. FAL M O U T H H I NT E R L A N D (R I D E N o. 2 9 ) To protect the ecology of the Fal river estuary, local laws dating back to 1876 ban oystermen from using boats with engines. They can only work under sail and must dredge the oyster beds by

hand, just as they did 400 years ago. To taste their catch, head to The Wheelhouse Crab and Oyster Bar, a hidden gem in Falmouth. Harbour Lights does the best fish and chips in town. PRO MISED LA ND ( R IDE No.30) There’s excellent coffee and cake in the café overlooking Penzance’s Art-Deco saltwater lido, but for lunch head to Newlyn and browse the fish shops that line the quay for picnic materials and top up at Hole Foods in Mousehole. The Tinners Arms in Zennor does good local pub food while the Gurnard’s Head nearby is an upmarket boho-chic dining pub with rooms. 35

BEST FOR

WILD SWIMMING

The late Roger Deakin, ecologist, nature writer, campaigner and wild swimmer, compiled a whole new watery vocabulary to describe the simple, timeless activity of immersing yourself in a natural body of water, be it a river, a lake, a stream or the sea. He not only uncovered obscure, rarely used words associated with wild water – dook, loom, winterburna, bumbel – but also described the feeling of water itself, from a languid, meandering river to a furiously frothing mountain stream. Deakin was attuned to the differences in colour, taste, temperature and even texture of the water as well as the variety of aquatic life he encountered. He even coined a new word – endolphins – for the thrillingly pleasurable, all-encompassing rush of a wild swim. Perhaps Deakin’s greatest contribution

Moreton ford

Tellisford weir

is debunking the view that swimming in nature is a dangerous, daredevil pursuit. It can be, if you ignore common sense, but many more people drown in their own baths each year, and we don’t plaster bathrooms with warning signs and barbed wire. The West Country, with its long coastline, broad flooded river valleys, bracing moorland brooks and tarns, and gin-clear chalk streams, has an abundance of perfect spots for wild swimming. Make sure you’re not trespassing on private land, be alert to the strength of the tide or the flow of the river, and check the depth before jumping in. WI LDFLOW ER S A ND WAT CH TOW ER S (R I D E No.4) The last couple of miles of this ride takes in a couple of five-star swim spots on the River Frome, perfect for reviving the legs and washing away any dust from the gravel tracks of Salisbury Plain. The first is the weir pool at Tellisford, and the other at the Farleigh & District Swimming Club, the world’s oldest river swimming club (founded in 1932) with 100 metres of swimmable river (summer only, £1.50 for non-members). AROUND T H E P UR BECKS ( R IDE No.7) This ride has plenty of spots for sea and river swims. The best way to escape the crowds at Lulworth Cove is to get into the water, likewise around the corner at Durdle Door, where the daring can swim through the famous chalk arch. If visiting the abandoned village of Tyneham there’s good swimming, and no crowds at all down the hill at Worbarrow Bay. On the River Frome there’s paddling at Moreton ford, with deeper water just upstream. Upstream of the bridge at Wareham is another popular spot at the very end of the ride.

River Wylye

River Plym

Lulworth Cove

M 5 PA S TO R A L ( R I D E N o. 1 0 ) There are at least three pleasant spots on this Bristol escape route. The Abbot’s Pool is a large former medieval fish pond covered in lily pads and surrounded by trees. At Clevedon, the recently restored Marine Lake is a saltwater lagoon that’s over 200 metres across. And there’s a well hidden swim spot in the silky waters of the meandering River Yeo near Yatton, though look out for cows in the field.

TO UR O F DA RT MO O R ( R IDE No.24) On a hot summer’s day, Dartmoor’s moorland streams are a wild swimming paradise, though the water is always pretty chilly. There are a few spots on the West Dart River between Huccaby Bridge near Hexworthy, and Two Bridges. On the other side of the moor there’s paddling in the Plym at Cadover Bridge, with deeper water downstream; and the river at Harford is just about deep enough for a reviving plunge towards the end of the ride.

SU R F A N D T U R F (R I D E N o. 1 9 ) Water, water everywhere, nor any a place to swim, is how I feel riding down the Exe Estuary Trail. The long sandy beach at Exmouth more than makes up for it, as does the River Otter, just around the headland. The river, home to England’s first colony of beavers since the 1500s, has several great spots: one just north of Otterton, one near Tipton St John, and another at Cadhay weir, just past Ottery St Mary.

GR A NIT E KINGDO M ( R IDE No.27) There are some fine swim spots on Cornwall’s north coast, though the Atlantic is noticeably colder than the English Channel on the south coast. Port Gaverne is a sheltered, swimmable cove, with some high rocks for jumping and diving. A few miles on is the tranquil harbour and beach of Port Quin. The final section of the ride is along the River Camel where there are plenty of spots for a dip. 45

BEST FOR

FA M I L I E S

For new cyclists and younger children, sharing even quiet country lanes with motor traffic can be unnerving. Fortunately, thanks to the dogged work of Sustrans, enlightened local councils and national parks, there are miles of traffic-free cycling to enjoy. Riverside paths, canal towpaths, off-road cycle tracks and bridleways are an enjoyable, safe and confidencebuilding alternative to roads and lanes. Beeching’s Axe fell heavily on the West Country’s railways but several of the closed branch lines now live a second life as traffic-free cycling and walking paths. The rides in this book are generally too long and too hilly for very young children or absolute beginners, but several of the rides have familyfriendly sections that are perfect as stand-alone rides for younger and less experienced cyclists, and for people whose mileage is limited. WIL D FL OW E R S A ND WAT C H TOW E R S (RIDE N o.4 ) The first eight miles of this ride follow the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal. It’s ideal for family cycling – carry on a little further to reach Caen Hill and its remarkable flight of canal locks (see Ride No. 1). Older children who are competent bike handlers will enjoy the wildness and big views of the largely traffic-free Imber Range perimeter path. The surface is loose in places, and there are a few hills to climb. WATE RWO R L D ( R I D E N o. 1 2 ) The long, flat lanes of the Somerset Levels are good cycling terrain for older children. The most family-friendly section is the three-mile trafficfree path through the RSPB’s Shapwick Heath reserve near Glastonbury. There’s plenty to see along the way, including the Neolithic ‘Sweet Track’ and bird hides overlooking the marshes. 46

Caption

I N PUR SUIT O F EDWA R D T H O MA S (R I D E No.14) This ride includes two sections of the towpath beside the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal. Taken as a whole, the 14-mile canal is a great family ride and especially attractive for junior astronomers, as it includes the Somerset Space Walk, a scale model of the solar system. It’s seven miles from the sun to Pluto; each metre of cycling equates to half a million kilometres of space travel. SU R F A ND T UR F ( R IDE No.19) The traffic-free Exe Estuary Trail is a family cycling mecca and makes for a fantastic day out. Kids will love putting their bikes on the Topsham ferry and older children should be able to ride all the way down to Starcross for the ferry to Exmouth. There are trains if a bailout is required. Make it an overnight adventure by camping beside the water at the Turf Hotel. The grounds of Killerton House have a few miles of attractive, traffic-free cycle paths.

VI O L E T S A N D V I A D U C T S (R I D E N o. 2 1 ) Unlike many former railway paths, which can be a bit dull, the traffic-free Granite Way from Okehampton to Lydford (eight miles each way) has a genuine wow factor. It crosses two towering railway viaducts and commands huge views over Dartmoor and the surrounding countryside. There are a couple of good pubs for lunch, or just pack a picnic. It’s a very gentle uphill on the way out, which makes for an easy ride back at the end of the day. G R A N I T E K I N G D OM (R I D E N o. 2 7 ) The Camel Trail is Cornwall’s most popular family destination and most ride out to the pretty fishing port of Padstow, famous for its May Day ’Obby ’Oss celebrations and Rick Stein’s culinary empire. But it’s also worth heading on the less-used upstream section towards the off-grid Snails Pace café at Wenford Bridge (PL30 3PN). The river has some very childfriendly paddling and swimming spots. There are plenty of options for cycle hire, including tandems, child seats, tag-alongs and trailers. 47

BEST FOR

PUBS

The pub, the church and the green are three focal points that help define the quintessential English village. Yet across the country, pubs are closing at an alarming rate. Many of those that remain have become quasi-restaurants offering upmarket dining or, at the other end of the scale, rural sports bars with giant television screens and Saturday night karaoke. Historians believe the first pubs were Roman tabernae or roadside wine shops. These soon responded to local tastes for ale and the name evolved into tavern. By 1577 it is estimated that there was around one inn, pub, tavern or alehouse for every 200 people. It’s no surprise that the modern system of landlords licensed by local magistrates dates back to this time, the result of concerns about drunkenness and public order. But, as George Orwell observed, most people don’t go to pubs to get drunk. They go for a drink or two, certainly, but the best pubs also serve as a social club that’s open to all. Despite the trend of closures, the pub is fighting back. Pub food is more varied than ever, more pubs have rooms for overnight stays

and microbreweries are breathing new life into the art of beer-making. As well as crusading for traditional brewing, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) maintains a fantastic online directory of historic pub interiors. T H E O LD WAYS ( R IDE No.3) There are some outstanding pubs in the chalk valleys west of Salisbury. Best of the lot is the rustic Compasses Inn in Lower Chicksgrove, which does good food and has rooms for overnight stays. The Carriers in Stockton is an unpretentious village boozer while the Prince Leopold has an idyllic garden by the River Wylye. For a historic pub interior, there are few pubs to rival Salisbury’s Haunch of Venison. WATERWO R LD ( R IDE No.12) Glastonbury’s late 15th-century George and Pilgrim Inn claims to be the oldest purposebuilt pub in the West Country. In nearby Lower Godney, the Sheppey Inn is reinventing the rural pub for the 21st century: local ales and ciders, modern cooking and zany decor. Untouched by the modern world is the Railway Inn near Meare, a good, honest rural boozer. High on the Mendips is the cosy, stone-built Queen Vic in Priddy. T H E ROA D TO C A MELOT ( R IDE No.13) This ride has some fine stately homes, but the big draw pub-wise is the humble but historic Rose and Crown in Huish Episcopi, one of only eight pubs in the UK without a bar counter. North and South Cadbury both have classic village pubs, while there are very few pubs that can beat the panoramic view from the Prince of Wales on top of Ham Hill.

The Haunch of Venison, Salisbury

TO T H E E D G E O F T H E M OOR (R I D E N o.2 0 ) xxxxx The Tors Inn in Belstone is a friendly walkers’ pub and B&B that makes for a worthy destination for a bike ride. The return route passes half a dozen historic inns on the old stagecoach route from London to Cornwall. W I D E C O M B E WAY (R I D E N o. 2 3 ) This ride takes in three of Dartmoor’s best pubs: the Rugglestone Inn in Widecombe-inthe-Moor, a multiple CAMRA award-winner; the Ring of Bells, a recently renovated dining pub with rooms in North Bovey; and the cheery Cleave Inn in Lustleigh. TH E DA RT C I R C U L A R (R I D E N o. 2 5 ) Take a break from the relentless hills of the South Hams in one of the many good pubs on this ride. The Durant Inn in Ashprington and the Maltsters in Tuckenhay both do very good food. Dittisham’s Ferry Boat Inn has a great view across the Dart while Stoke Gabriel has a classic example of the medieval church house inn. The Tally Ho in Littlehempston is a successful community-owned village pub.

The Bell Inn. Aldworth, Ride No. 18

The Maltsters Arms, Tuckenhay

The Ferryboat Inn, Dittisham 49

WILTSHIRE

No.3 T H E O L D WAY S A glorious contrast of ancient forest and chalk-stream valleys, following some of the oldest roads in Britain

This ride takes in two of Wiltshire’s most beautiful linear landscapes: the broad valley of the River Wylye, and the wooded uplands to the south. The Wylye is one of five chalk streams that flow off Salisbury Plain and converge at Salisbury. It gives its name to Wilton and to the county. Starting out of the lovely medieval cathedral city of Salisbury, the ride heads west along NCR 24 towards Wilton. This was a monastic settlement dating back to the eighth century. After the dissolution of the monasteries, Wilton became the seat of the Herbert family. Their wealth, derived from lands in Wales and the West Country, is evident in Wilton House and its landscaped gardens but also in Wilton’s huge and extravagantly decorative early Victorian parish church, well worth a stop A. From Wilton the route heads up Grovely Hill on the line of an old road known in ancient charters as the Way of the Wood B. In late spring there are carpets of bluebells, while in summer there are sightings of the exquisite and ultra-rare Purple Emperor butterfly. Once a royal hunting ground but now part of the Wilton estate, local people have always enjoyed privileges here; the ancient right of the villagers of nearby Great Wishford to collect firewood from the forest floor is celebrated each year on the 29th of May,

known as Oak Apple Day. A ceremony is held in Salisbury Cathedral, and there is dancing, music and revelry in the village. The route follows the course of the Roman road and an even older causeway known as Grim’s Ditch C. It’s a name (along with Devil’s Dyke) given by Saxon settlers to many pre-Roman earthworks across England. Their function remains a mystery but they may have been used to demarcate territory. Eventually the Grovely Ridgeway leaves the woods and is joined from the north-east by the Harrow Way, probably the oldest road in Britain D. The ride returns to these old ways a little further on, after a brief descent into the Nadder valley through the handsome village of Chilmark, and past its stone quarries. Stone from here is a pale and fine-grained limestone, the main building material in Salisbury Cathedral and other great buildings. In 1936 the Royal Air Force began using the Chilmark quarries to store munitions, and installed a narrow gauge railway that connects to the main line that runs along the valley E. Later, during the Cold War, the government built a 40-room underground bunker to be used as the regional headquarters for the West Country in the event of a nuclear attack. In 2017 the police discovered that the bunker was being used by

START & FINISH: Salisbury • DISTANCE: 44 miles/71km • TOTAL ASCENT: 596m TERRAIN: Lanes and woodland tracks. Easy. 67

N o . 3 T H E O L D WAY S

Wilton church

criminals to grow huge crops of marijuana, worth an estimated £2 million a year. The factory was staffed by young workers trafficked from Vietnam and held in slave-like conditions. Just outside Tisbury stands a tithe barn reputed to be not just the largest in England, but also the largest building with a thatched roof F. It was built in the 1400s to store the tithes, the tax-in-kind levied by churches on agricultural production, in this case by the Abbess of Shaftesbury. It now houses a gallery and arts centre. After Tisbury comes a long climb up through Fonthill Gifford to Hindon. This village has a tranquil demeanour that gives no clue to its past life as a market town, seat of court and government and stagecoach stop on the main route between London and Exeter. There were once 14 68

pubs and inns and at least twice as many people lived here. The railways dealt a hammer blow to the stagecoach trade, roads fell into disrepair, and towns like Hindon never recovered. The ancient Harrow Way is now the A303, and probably the biggest obstacle to getting around by bike in this part of Wiltshire. The crossing at Chicklade is far from ideal, but it’s the best currently available G. While waiting for a gap in the speeding traffic, consider all the wayfarers who have passed this way over thousands of years. Once across the A303, a steep gravel bridleway leads up to Great Ridge woods and the same ancient trackway last seen back in Grovely woods. Crossing the ridge on forest roads and bridleways it’s then down to Corton, one of the many lovely villages of the Wylye Valley. Llanrwst

N o . 3 T H E O L D WAY S

Nowhere beats the Wylye valley for a gentle spin of the wheels through picture-perfect villages, fine houses and lovely little churches. The churches of Boyton, Sherrington, Stockton and Little Langford are all well worth a visit. The river itself, a shallow chalk stream that’s

prized among trout fishermen, offers a couple of good spots for swimming: by the road bridge at Steeple Langford and just past Great Wishford, accessed by a tarmac footpath on the left (H,I). From Wilton it’s back to Salisbury on the route from earlier in the day.

P U B S & P I T STO P S COFFEE DARLING, 2 Silver St, Wilton SP2 0HX (01722 744002) Bike-friendly café with courtyard garden serving outstanding breakfasts, lunches and teas.

HINDON VILLAGE STORES, Hindon SP3 6DJ (01747 820366) Small community-run shop selling picnic provisions from local producers.

THE COMPASSES INN, Lower Chicksgrove SP3 6NB (01722 714318) Just off route, rustic pub with outstanding food and rooms for overnight stays.

PRINCE LEOPOLD INN, Upton Lovell, Warminster BA12 0JP (01985 850460) Just off route. Excellent food, idyllic riverside garden.

THE BLACK DOG INN, Chilmark SP3 5AH (01722 716344) Village pub serving Wadworth ales and simple pub food.

THE CARRIERS, Stockton Park, Warminster BA12 0SQ (01985 850538) No-nonsense village freehouse serving good, simple food.

THE BOOT INN, High St, Tisbury SP3 6PS (01747 870363) 250-year-old CAMRA award-winning freehouse.

THE HAUNCH OF VENISON, 1 Minster St, Salisbury SP1 1TB (01722 411313) The stunning interior of this largely 15th-century pub is unmissable. Food served.

THE BECKFORD ARMS, Fonthill Gifford SP3 6PX (01747 870385) Upmarket village pub with rooms. ANGEL INN, Hindon SP3 6DJ (01747 820696) Historic coaching inn, now a village pub with rooms. Good food.

BIKE SHOP: Stonehenge Cycles, 86 Fisherton Street, Salisbury SP2 7QY (01722 334915) High-end bike shop.

THE LAMB, Hindon SP3 6DP (01747 820573) Pub with rooms owned by Young’s brewery.

N o . 3 T H E O L D WAY S

A36

B30 8 3

Sutton Veny

A303

Winterbourne Stoke

Upton Lovell

A303

Corton

Amesbury

West Amesbury

Codford Boyton

03 A3

Wylye

Great Durnford

Steeple Langford

Stapleford

Upper Woodford

A36

Netton

Hanging Langford

Middle Woodford Great Wishford

A35 0

Lower Woodford South Newton

A303

Teffont Magna

Stratford sub Castle

B3 0 89

Teffont Evias

Burcombe

ast Knoyle

A30

Wilton

A3 6

Quidhampton Compton Chamberlayne

Tisbury

Sutton Mandeville

A3 0

A3 09

Salisbury

70km

Laverstock

Fovant A 3 54

250m

Ford

A3 0

B 30 8 9

Fonthill Gifford

Chilmark

Fonthill Bishop

B308 9

Berwick St Leonard

Winterbourne Earls

Little Durnford

Chicklade Hindon

Wi Da

A34 5

A303 B308 9

A345

A36

Stockton

A 338

Berwick St James

Fisherton de la Mere

A360

Sherrington

Britford

N o . 3 T H E O L D WAY S

River Wylye

Great Ridge Moel Siabod and Snowdon 71

DORSET

No. 6 THE THRILLS OF THE CHASE The rolling chalk plateau of Cranborne Chase is home to hilltop airfields, prehistoric ruins, medieval villages and the most famous hill in British television history

Cranborne Chase is a bold and unexpectedly big landscape: a plateau of whaleback chalk hills that rise steeply from the Blackmore Vale in the west and the Vale of Wardour in the north, shading gradually into gentler gravels and clay in the south and east. Between the rounded hills are dry valleys shaped by glacial meltwaters and tinkling chalk streams. Historically it’s a borderland, today straddling Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire. These medieval boundaries echo older boundaries between the Durotriges and Belgae tribes of Celtic Britain, and those of their Romano-British descendants and sixth-century Saxon settlers. For most of the last thousand years it was a royal and baronial ‘chase’ for hunting deer, the longest-lasting enclave of a huge forest that once stretched from Southampton to Bath. Feudal lords held back the exploitation and settlement of the land and it became a notorious haven for poachers, smugglers, highwaymen and fugitives. The mid 1800s saw widespread clearance of woodland by the landed estates that remain dominant on the Chase, and the post-war era has seen a big increase in arable farming. Woodland and chalk grassland have shrunk to a few pockets, though several are big enough to give a flavour of the Chase as it was in centuries past.

Between fast, hostile main roads and the many rough farm tracks there are relatively few quiet lanes, which can make it a tricky place to get around by bicycle. This ride makes the most of them and, though it takes in only the western half of the Chase, it is the longest in the book, so worth considering splitting over two days. The ride begins in the Blackmore Vale at Gillingham and heads east through gently rolling farmland towards a series of pretty villages at the head of the Vale of Wardour. The scarp ridge of Cranborne Chase towers to the south, and the leg-busting climb from Ludwell is on a Roman road that goes straight up the hill. From the crest of the climb to Farnham, the route goes via Ashmore, the highest village on the Chase, but there’s an adventurous off-road alternative via Win Green, Berwick Down and Tollard Royal A. A couple of miles west across Ashmore Down is Compton Abbas airfield in an extraordinary upland setting, with a good café where you can watch the little aeroplanes take off and land B. About 500 metres after crossing the A354, once the old coaching road across the Chase, the ride crosses the Dorset Cursus, a six-mile long Neolithic earthwork enclosure C. It’s three times the length of the more famous Great Cursus at Stonehenge, and the largest monument of its

START & FINISH: Gillingham • DISTANCE: 65 miles/104km • TOTAL ASCENT: 1,066m TERRAIN: All surfaced lanes and well-surfaced tracks. Challenging. 87

No.6 THE THRILLS OF THE CHASE

Stourpaine

kind in the world. Sadly almost nothing remains visible at ground level: it’s only really discernible from aerial photographs and satellite imaging. The Cursus is the largest of the many prehistoric sites that dot Cranborne Chase. Many of them were first studied by General Augustus Pitt Rivers, an army officer considered the father of modern archaeology. In his early fifties he unexpectedly inherited a vast fortune from a cousin including some 30,000 acres on the Chase. Always spoken of as ‘the General’, he was a stern but benevolent man who did his excavations in winter to give work at a slack time in the farming year. His international ethnographic collection forms the basis of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and his Wessex collection is now at the Salisbury Museum. He lived nearby at Rushmore Park, where he kept a small zoo, formed a band from among his workmen and built the Larmer 88

Tree Pleasure Grounds, for “public enlightenment and entertainment”. The garden opens to the public during the summer and hosts an annual music festival D. It’s common for churches to be built on the sites of older, pre-Christian places of worship, but nowhere is the result more arresting than at Knowlton, a short detour off the route, where the ruins of a Norman church stand within a Neolithic henge monument E. From here, the ride threads its way west along the edge of the Chase past the large Georgian mansion and landscaped grounds of Crichel House and towards the River Stour. Along the way, it takes in the abandoned runways of the Second World War airfield at Tarrant Rushton F. Where the River Tarrant meets the Stour once stood a medieval abbey. All that remains is a tiny 12th-century church with some large 14th-century frescoes G. Llanrwst

No.6 THE THRILLS OF THE CHASE

For the next few miles the ride follows the Stour through Blandford Forum, a handsome town that burned down in 1731 and was rebuilt in fine Georgian style. A cycle path on an old railway line continues beneath the ramparts of Hod Hill and Hambledon Hill to just past Shillingstone, where the route strikes north towards Shaftesbury. An ancient Wessex citadel atop a chalk hill, Shaftesbury also has a special place in the history

of cycling. It was the filming location of Britain’s favourite TV ad, made for Hovis by director Ridley Scott in 1973. The ad shows a baker’s boy laboriously pushing his delivery bike up a steep cobblestone street before riding joyfully back down. Gold Hill is much as it was back then, so be prepared for a tough, cobbled climb H. From Shaftesbury it’s mostly downhill back to Gillingham.

P U B S & P I T STO P S PYTHOUSE KITCHEN GARDEN, West Hatch SP3 6PA (01747 870444) Outstanding food with produce from the historic walled garden. Glamping.

THE CROWN HOTEL, West Street, Blandford Forum DT11 7AJ (01258 456626) Original vintage decor inside this local landmark.

SEMLEY VILLAGE STORES, Semley SP7 9AU (01747 830832) Excellent village shop serving teas and coffees.

WHITE HORSE INN, Stourpaine DT11 8TA (01258 453535) Large village pub and community shop serving traditional pub fayre.

BENETT ARMS, Semley SP7 9AS (01747 830221) Traditional village pub with modern rooms for overnight stays. COMPTON ABBAS AIRFIELD CAFÉ, Ashmore SP5 5AP (01747 811767) Good food overlooking the airfield. THE MUSEUM INN, Farnham DT11 8DE (01725 516261) Upmarket dining pub with rooms. THE DROVERS INN, Gussage All Saints BH21 5ET (01258 840550) Excellent community-owned village pub with good, simple food. YELLOW BICYCLE CAFÉ, 30a Salisbury St, Blandford Forum DT11 7AR (01258 480356) Tiny café serving delicious food at reasonable prices.

THE WILLOWS VINTAGE TEA ROOMS, Shillingstone DT11 0SG (01258 861167) Tea room and good value B&B. THE BAKER’S ARMS, Child Okeford DT11 8ED (01258 860260) Late-18th-century pub in the centre of the village. Food served. THE FONTMELL, Fontmell Magna SP7 0PA (01747 811411) Stylish dining pub with rooms (a mile off route). BIKE SHOP: Wheels of Dorset, Station Road, Gillingham SP8 4QA (01747 825757) BIKE SHOP: Offcamber, 38 Salisbury Street, Blandford Forum DT11 7PR (01258 458677)

A3 5 09 B3

No.6 THE THRILLS OF THE CHASE

Hindon

A30 3

Zeals

B308 9

Berwick St Leonard

West Knoyle

Mere

B30 9 2

03 A3

A303

Chicklade 0 A35

A303 B308 9

ourton

Chilmark

Fonthill Bishop

B 3089

Teffont Magna

B3 0 89

Dinton

Teffont Evias

Fonthill Gifford

Barfor St Mart

East Knoyle Compton Chamberlayne Silton

Sutton Mandeville

Tisbury

Milton on Stour

Sedgehill Swallowcliffe

Semley

Gillingham

Ansty

B3 1 08

A30

Broad Chalke

Motcombe B3 09 2

East Stour

A30

Shaftesbury

Alvediston

Stour Provost

Bowerchalke

Ludwell

B 30 91

t Stour

head alen

Ebbesbourne Wake

Donhead St Mary

A30

0 A3

A3 0

Fovant

Berwick St John

Charlton

54 A3

Stour Row

B3 0

Melbury Abbas

A3 5

Todber Margaret Marsh

Compton Abbas Tollard Royal

1 09

B30

Sixpenny Handley 81

B3081

Sutton Waldron

Manston

Farnham Iwerne Minster

Gussage St Andrew Cashmoor

Child Okeford

A357

Chettle Tarrant Gunville

Shroton

5 A3

Cranbor B30

Wimborne St Giles Shillingstone

head uintin Stourpaine

Pimperne

A AA AA 54 AA A3 A A AA A AA A A A

Tarrant Launceston Tarrant Monkton

Blandford Camp

Ibberton Turnworth oolland

Woodlands Moor Crichel Horton

Blandford Forum 2

Tarrant Rushton

Hinton Martell

Holt Wood Gaunts Common

Winterborne Stickland Winterborne Houghton

Witchampton 08 B3

A3 54

Bryanston

Gussage All Saints

Long Crichel

Durweston

300m

Gussage St Michael

B30 78

Okeford Fitzpaine

A350

Sturminster Newton

92 B 30

Hinton St Mary

Ashmore Fontmell Magna

A3 5

Marnhull

Hinton Parva

Tarrant Keyneston Charlton Marshall

Holt

Stanbridge

Winterborne Clenston Milton Abbas

A3 5

B3075

1 A3

Colehill Pamphill Sturminster

Wimborne Minster

0 B3

Winterborne Whitechurch

Furzehill

30 82

50 A3

Shapwick

105km

rd tin

Shillingstone

Compton Abbas airfield

Knowlton

Tarrant Rushton airfield

SOMERSET & AVON

No.12 WAT E RW O R L D A ride of contrasts, from the flat expanses of the Somerset Levels to the limestone uplands of the Mendips and the towering cliffs of Cheddar Gorge

The Somerset Levels and the Mendip Hills are landscapes are shaped by water, but in very different ways and over very different timescales. The Mendips are ancient, made of limestone formed underwater more than 300 million years ago and thrust upwards as Africa crashed into Spain. In the years that followed, glacial meltwaters carved deep cave systems and gorges. By contrast, the coastal plain of the Somerset Levels has been shaped by the sea, by rivers and by people. At end of the most recent Ice Age (around 10,000 years ago) the Levels were under water. What are hills today were islands back then, surrounded by a mosaic of tidal and freshwater marshes. Taming the rivers and holding back the sea is an ongoing task that began in Roman times but was mastered by the medieval monks who built canals and diverted rivers to drain the land for livestock and crops. The ride makes an easterly traverse from the coast at Highbridge towards the landmark of Glastonbury Tor. Along the way, it passes the Avalon Marshes Centre which has exhibits on the history and ecology of the Levels A . The ride crosses Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve B, with habitats ranging from wildflower meadows to shady, wet fern woods and open water fringed by reedbeds. Around 6,000 years ago, the

people who lived in the dry uplands surrounding the Levels built wooden tracks across the marshes. One of these, the Sweet Track, may be the world’s oldest man-made roadway (there is a replica a few hundred yards off the route). Shapwick feels so alive with trees, plants and birds that it’s hard to imagine that just 50 years ago it was a desolate landscape of commercial peat extraction. It’s a controversial industry that continues elsewhere in the Levels, destroying rare habitats and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. On the outskirts of Glastonbury, the route turns north and squeezes through a gap between the Isle of Wedmore to the west and the what was once the mainland. It’s all dry land now, but would once have been a navigable channel for ships and boats. The flat terrain makes for easy cycling but to fully appreciate the Levels you need to see them from on high. A little climbing is required, up through the wooded cleft of Ebbor Gorge. The top of the climb is a popular local beauty spot known as Deer Leap, where there are some prehistoric standing stones and a stunning view across the Levels C. Settlement around the village of Priddy dates back to the time when our hunter-gatherer ancestors were starting to take up farming.

START & FINISH: Highbridge • DISTANCE: 55 miles/88km • TOTAL ASCENT: 507m TERRAIN: Mostly lanes, a short section of good gravel track. Moderate. 125

N o . 1 2 WAT E RW O R L D

Shapwick Heath

Glastonbury Tor

The land around the village is dotted with ancient barrows, hut circles and henge monuments. Priddy’s annual August sheep fair dates back to the 14th-century though it has skipped a few years lately. A stack of traditional ash sheep hurdles on the village green was destroyed by arsonists in 2013 but has been rebuilt, complete with thatched roof, by local volunteers. Priddy boasts two pubs but sadly a third, the Miners’ Arms, is no more. In the 1970s it was run by Paul Leyton, a rocket engineer turned publican who revived the local delicacy of Mendip wallfish. These are garden snails picked from the rough limestone walls that criss-cross the plateau. Leyton used a disused swimming pool surrounded by an electric fence to raise as many as 100,000 at a time. He also brewed his 126

own beer and can stake a claim to have started Britain’s first microbrewery. There may no longer be any wallfish served in Priddy’s pubs, but you can still track some down in Bristol. From Priddy Hill, the high point on the ride, it’s a thrilling descent through Cheddar Gorge D. The towering limestone cliffs make it Britain’s deepest gorge. Evidence of human habitation dates back 40,000 years. ‘Cheddar Man’, who lived 9,000 years ago, is the oldest complete skeleton ever found in the British Isles. Older still are the bones of mammoths, woolly rhinos, bears, hyenas and cave lions that once roamed Somerset. Rather more recently, Cheddar gave its name to the world’s most ubiquitous cheese, though most of the cheddar consumed today is nothing like the tangy, earthy, crunchy local Llanrwst

N o . 1 2 WAT E RW O R L D

delicacy made by the kneading, cutting and staking of the curds and a long maturation in a cool, damp environment. A limestone cavern is just about perfect. From Cheddar it’s the Strawberry Line cycle path to Axbridge, a small Saxon burgh town with some fine medieval buildings, then back onto the

road for a traverse of the north-western tip of the Mendips past Compton Bishop, Loxton and Bleadon. The final miles are pancake flat but for the bridge over the M5. If you have any spare energy, then spend it on the stiff walk up Brent Knoll (leave bikes by the church and follow the footpath up) E.

P U B S & P I T STO P S THE RAILWAY INN, Ashcott, near Meare BA6 9SX (01458 860223) Remote, old fashioned rural boozer. SWEET’S TEA ROOMS, Blakeway, Wedmore BS28 4UE (07830 211544) Café popular with local cyclists. Adjoining peat and science museum. Just off the route. THE SHEPPEY INN, Lower Godney BA5 1RZ (01458 831594) Hip Levels pub, good food. Rooms for overnight stays. GEORGE AND PILGRIM HOTEL, 1 High St, Glastonbury BA6 9DP (01458 831146) Late 15thcentury inn and the oldest purpose-built pub in the West Country. MOOR VIEW CAMPING, Priddy BA5 3BA (01749 676611) Reasonably priced bell tent glamping. QUEEN VICTORIA INN, Priddy BA5 3BA (01749 676385) Traditional stone-built pub, food served.

CASTLE OF COMFORT, East Harptree BS40 6DD (01761 221321) Off route, but worth a detour. Real ales and simple food, a favourite of Mendip cavers. ALMSHOUSE TEA SHOP, Axbridge BS26 2AR (01934 733720) Pretty little tea shop. THE LAMB INN, Axbridge BS26 2AP (01934 732253) A rambling building with large garden and skittle alley. THE NEW INN, Cross, Axbridge BS26 2EE (01934 732455) Roadside pub, food served all day. DUNNETT GRANARY B&B, Webbington Road, Compton Bishop BS26 2HH (07773 424608) Elegant, reasonably priced B&B in a lovely setting. BLEADON FARM SHOP & CAFÉ, Bleadon BS24 0QE (01934 815584) Good coffee, overlooking the cricket ground.

127

A30 33

A37 1

A36 8

A Locking

B311

N o . 1 2 WAT E RW O R L D

Rickford

Sandford

Churchill

Banwell

A3 68

Burrington

Blagdon

Hutton

Uphill

Star

B3 13 4

Ubley A

Winscombe 0

Compton Martin

A38

Shipham

A n

Charterhouse

Loxton

Compton Bishop

Axbridge A371

Cross

5 13

Weare

A38

A370

East Brent

Rooksbridge

Berrow

Tarnock

Burnham on Sea

Nyland

Chapel Allerton

Rodney Stoke

Easton

Wedmore

41 B 31

Highbridge

Theale

Haybridge

A Huntspill

Wookey Hole

A38

Blackford

Westbury sub Mendip

B3 15 1

9 B 313

Mark

Priddy

Cocklake West Stoughton

B3135

Draycott

Clewer Brent Knoll

B3139

1 37

Cheddar B3134

B3 151

Biddisham B3 14

Lower Weare

West East Ha

Wookey

B 3 13 9

A371

Wells

East Huntspill

Woodford Coxley A3 8

Westhay B3 1 51

Puriton B3 141

Bawdrip

Cossington

A3 9

Chilton Polden Edington

Chilton Trinity

Catcott

Glastonbury

Chedzoy Moorlinch

Pedwell Greinton

Priiddy 128

A361

Ashcott Sutton Mallet

West Pennard

Shapwick 90km

A38

A3 9

Bridgwater

Meare

Woolavington

A3 9 A3 6 1

Walton

Street

15 1

300m

A39

Burtle Pawlett

The Sweet Track (reconstruction)

Moel Siabod and Snowdon

DEVON

No.21 VIOLETS AND VIADUCTS A ride on a spectacular rails-to-trails project taking in the ancient capital of Dartmoor, the remains of an underwater volcano and the verdant lanes of the moor’s western fringe

When Beeching’s axe fell on the branch lines that once counted for a full third of Britain’s railway network, it seems blindingly obvious now that the best thing to do with them was to turn them into cycling and walking paths. Sadly, the government was captivated by a vision of the motoring society and thousands of miles of railway land was sold off or given away, each line fragmenting into hundreds of tiny parcels of land. Piecing them back together has been a slow and laborious task for cycling campaigners and enlightened local authorities. Nowhere is the reward for their dedication more breathtaking than in the Granite Way, the start of this ride. The London and South Western Railway was built as a competitor to the Great Western Railway’s southern route between Exeter and Plymouth. But the Okehampton route proved no match for what Brunel had built for the GWR in the south of the county. The section from Okehampton to Exeter still exists and carries heritage steam services, while most of the line from Okehampton to Plymouth is now a popular cycling and walking route. The first great spectacle on the Granite Way from Okehampton is the vertigo-inducing Meldon Viaduct, a 165-metre-long wrought iron structure that curves over the West Okement River A. At almost 50 metres high it’s reminiscent of a tottering fairground ride. To the south-east rise High Willhays

and Yes Tor, the two highest points in England south of the Peak District. It is a slight uphill grade for a few miles to the Lake Viaduct, a majestic structure built from large granite blocks with nine lovely arches B. To get the best views, leave the bikes and scramble a little way up the hillside. A little further on, the small, sleepy village of Lydford – population 458 – offers few clues to its past life as an economic and political powerhouse of Dartmoor and west Devon. The Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great designated it as one of his four burghs, or strongholds, in Devon and it grew to become the county’s second biggest urban centre after Exeter in the years before the Norman Conquest. Strategically well placed and commanding a deep gorge in the River Lyd, the town had its own courts, a mint, a regular market and an annual fair. After the Conquest, the Normans levied the same level of tax on Lydford as they did on London, which gives an idea of its relative size. They built a wooden fort to maintain control of the area, later upgrading it to stone following a wave of unrest across England. The present square castle dates from the 13th century and was not primarily defensive. It housed the court and a gaol. Dartmoor folk were an unruly bunch who resisted authority and ‘Lydford law’ soon became a byword for injustice: hang a man

START & FINISH: Okehampton • DISTANCE: 32 miles/51km • TOTAL ASCENT: 682m TERRAIN: Tarmac cycleways and lanes. Easy. 181

Meldon Viaduct

No.21 VIOLETS AND VIADUCTS

first, and put him on trial afterwards. In the 16th century one visitor described Lydford as “one of the most heinous, contagious and detestable places in the realm”. Five hundred years later, it’s one of the loveliest. The deep shady gorge with its 30-metrehigh waterfall became a popular Victorian tourist destination, now owned by the National Trust C. From Lydford it’s a steady climb on lanes to Brent Tor, the major landmark in the skyline of western Dartmoor D. Most of Dartmoor’s rocky outcrops or tors were formed by magma bubbling up into the earth’s crust, cooling slowly underground and only being revealed by erosion of softer surrounding rocks. Brent Tor, by contrast, is volcanic. About 350 million years ago, magma burst through the earth’s crust onto the seabed where it cooled very quickly under water. The tiny church on top is a mere 800 years old and built from the same volcanic rock. It’s a steep walk to the top but views are every bit as good as you’d expect. From Quither Common it’s downhill to Chillaton. A farming hamlet, the village grew in the 19th century, thanks to the discovery of manganese

ore in the nearby hills – 46,000 tonnes of ore was mined and the village had a blacksmith, a carpenter, a butcher, a mill, a general store, a post office and two pubs. Further down the hill and past the old mill is Sydenham House, a 17th-century manor and one of Devon’s great treasure houses, though badly damaged by a fire in 2012 E. It was built by local landowner and MP Sir Thomas Wise, and there’s an outlandish marble monument to him and other members of the Wise family in Marystow church, a short detour off the route F. After crossing the River Lyd, the route follows its course along lovely wooded lanes before a long, steady climb up to Galford Down and Beara Down. It’s then back onto the Granite Way at Lake for the return ride downhill to Okehampton. With Brunel’s southern railway line suffering long closures due to storm damage at Dawlish and Teignmouth, the possibility has been raised of reviving the Okehampton line as an alternative route to Plymouth. Who knows what this will mean for the Granite Way, but for now, it’s one of the most breathtaking stretches of trafficfree cycle path anwhere in the world.

P U B S & P I T STO P S THE HIGHWAYMAN INN, Sourton EX20 4HN (01837 861243) Ultra-kitsch occult-themed Dartmoor pub. Rooms, if you dare. BEARSLAKE INN, Lake, Sourton EX20 4HQ (01837 861334) Lovely, thatched pub with very comfortable rooms. Access via track from Lake Viaduct. CASTLE INN, Lydford EX20 4BH (01822 820242) Unspoiled village pub right by the castle.

WATERFALL TEA ROOM, Lydford Gorge EX20 4BN. Takeaway teas, cakes and hot snacks. BIKE SHOPS: Adventure Oakhampton, Klondyke Road, Okehampton EX20 1EW (01837 53916) Youth hostel, café and bike hire at the start of the Granite Way. BIKE SHOPS: Oakhampton Cycles, Nor th Road, Okehampton EX20 1BQ (01837 53811) Local bike shop.

183

A 3 86

No.21 VIOLETS AND VIADUCTS

21 B3

Okehampton

A3079 A307 9

B32 6

Germansweek

300m

Meldon Bratton Clovelly

A30

Sourton

55km Bridestowe A30

A 386

dger

Lewdown

A38 6

Lydford

Chillaton

B33 62

A386

Mary Tavy

Milton Abbot

184

North Brentor

0 A3

Bearslake Inn

Lydford Castle

Lake Viaduct Moel Siabod and Snowdon

CORNWALL

No.29 FA L M O U T H H I N T E R L A N D From the bustle of Falmouth’s grand harbour to the sleepy creeks of the Helstone River and a trio of spectacular sub-tropical gardens

After Sydney and Rio de Janeiro, Falmouth has the third deepest natural harbour in the world. Yet in Cornwall’s long history of seafaring it’s a relative newcomer. Neighbouring Penryn is much older but Falmouth grew rapidly in the 18th century thanks to the decision of the Post Office to base its ‘packet service’ here. For 150 years almost all overseas mail came and went through Falmouth, so it was the information hub of Britain’s expanding global empire. Charles Darwin disembarked from the Beagle here after his voyage of discovery, and solo round-theworld sailors Robin Knox-Johnston and Ellen MacArthur started and finished their recordbreaking voyages at Falmouth. This ride begins with a scenic loop out to Pendennis Point, the tip of a narrow headland that guards the mouth of the Carrick Roads waterway. It was here that Henry VIII built one of a handful of artillery fortifications to guard against invasion. They were expensive high technology at the time, funded by the dissolution of the monasteries. Unlike most of Henry’s forts, Pendennis Castle remained in use up to the Second World War but it’s now maintained by English Heritage as a tourist attraction A. Around the headland is the swimming cove of Swanpool Beach B . From here it’s a climb

from the coast to the hilltop jungle of Penjerrick Garden, the first of three gardens created in the early 1800s by members of the Fox family C. They were prosperous Quakers who combined business interests in shipping, pilchard fishing, mining and timber with an enthusiasm for scientific and botanical discovery. The 15-acre garden at Penjerrick bursts with exotic subtropical species and is certainly worth the £3 entry price. In terms of flowers it’s at its best in April and May, but at its wildest towards the end of the summer. Glendurgan Garden (National Trust D ) is renowned for the cherry laurel maze planted to amuse the Fox family’s many children, while Trebah Garden (private, but open to the public E) cascades down a ravine to the sea, interspersed by reflecting pools. Come in early spring for rhododendrons, magnolias and camellias; in summer for gigantic gunnera; and in late summer and autumn for brightly coloured hydrangeas. At the bottom of the hill is Porthnavas Creek, one of the seven creeks that are a defining feature of the Helford River. A ria, or drowned river valley, it was created by a combination of rising sea levels and the fact that southern Britain is still sinking after the glaciers in the north melted. The result is a wide natural harbour with fin-

START & FINISH: Falmouth • DISTANCE: 31 miles/49km • TOTAL ASCENT: 695m TERRAIN: Lanes and urban roads. Moderate. 231

N o. 2 9 FA L M O U T H H I N T E R L A N D

Porth Navas

ger-like creeks. These have long been used as inland waterways by farms, mines, quarries and fishermen, and as perfect hideaways for pirates and brigands, as evoked by Daphne du Maurier in her novel Frenchman’s Creek, which is set here. Sitting at the head of the river, the port of Gweek is a sleepy place today but it was once far busier: as a Tudor port, with a tin smelting house at the quayside, and as a centre of the Cornish pilchard industry, employing over 200 boats with the huge catches all cured, pressed and packed in barrels here. From Gweek the ride turns its back on coastal Cornwall and heads inland into mining country. The mines around Wendron once employed as many as 9,000 people. Wheal Roots is now run as a mining heritage tourist attraction, opportunistically renamed ‘Poldark Mine’ to take advantage 232

of the popularity of Winston Graham’s Poldark novels and television adaptations F . Further up the valley and half hidden in the woods are the remains of the granite engine house of the Wendron Consols Mine G. Records show that in 1861 this mine alone employed 230 men, 64 women and 74 boys. Nearby Porkellis was once a boom town with a cinema, post office and shop, pubs, Men’s Institute and a coach builder. Only one pub remains. The next section of the ride takes in farming country, rounding the Stithians reservoir. The town of Stithians has just 2,000 inhabitants but one day each summer ten times that number flock to the town for the agricultural show that’s been held here since 1834. The final climb in the ride is up to the solar and wind farms at Roskrow Barton H. In early spring the fields around here Llanrwst

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are filled with daffodils and provide quite a sight (and scent). Cornish growers take advantage of their sunny latitude, warm weather and fertile soil to grow Britain’s earliest spring blooms. After crossing the busy A39, it’s a long, glorious descent into Penryn, first past the colourful university buildings of the Penryn

Campus (shared by Falmouth University and the University of Exeter), then down Market Street with its wealth of Tudor, Jacobean and Georgian architecture. On reaching the River Fal, there’s a right turn and, after some sketchy bike lanes on a main road, a pleasant ride along the shoreline all the way back into the centre of Falmouth.

P U B S & P I T STO P S THE RED LION, Mawnan Smith TR11 5EP (01326 250026) Sweet 16th-century thatched pub. Food served.

STITHIANS OUTDOOR CENTRE, Stithians TR16 6NW (01209 860301) Lakeside café. Good coffee and cakes.

THE TRENGILLY WARTHA INN, Constantine TR11 5RP (01326 340332) Easy-going country inn set in large gardens. Very good food. Rooms available.

MUDDY BEACH, Jubilee Wharf, Penryn TR10 8FG (01326 374424) Stylish café-restaurant overlooking the river.

THE BLACK SWAN, Gweek TR12 6TU (01326 221502) Cheery village pub with food and rooms.

HARBOUR LIGHTS, Arwenack St, Falmouth TR11 3LH (01326 316934) Falmouth’s best chippy.

THE NEW INN, Wendron, TR13 0EA (01326 572683) Stone-walled country pub/restaurant.

SEVEN STARS, 1 The Moor, Falmouth TR11 3QA (01326 312111) Priceless relic of an ale house, run by the same family for seven generations.

THE STAR INN, Porkellis TR13 0JR (01326 340237) Pub, community shop and library. Popular with local cyclists. OUT IN THE OPEN, Porkellis TR13 0PD (01326 340627) Spacious gay-friendly camping and glamping on a working farm. THE GOLDEN LION INN, Menherion TR16 6NW (01209 860332) Pub with lakeside camping.

THE WHEELHOUSE CRAB AND OYSTER BAR, Upton Slip, Falmouth TR11 3DQ (01326 318050) Superb seafood in a cosy, informal setting. Booking advised. BIKE SHOP: Cycle Solutions, Jubilee Wharf, Commercial Rd, Penryn TR10 8FG (01326 377003)

233

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Ponsanooth

oon

Mylor Bridge

A3 9

Carnmenellis

9 32

B3 28 0

Stithians

Mylor Churchtown

Calvadnack

B3 2 89

Church Town

A 39 3

Tremough

Penryn

Mabe Burnthouse

A394

Flushing

Falmouth

Porkellis Budock Water

A Seworgan

A Constantine

200m

Mawnan Smith

B 3 297

Port Navas Mawnan

Helston 94 A3

50km A 308 3

234

Gweek Helford

Rame

Wendron

Halwartha

A3 0

B 3297

Carnkie

Manaccan

A 39

St.

Wendron Consoles Mine

Gweek Moel Siabod and Snowdon

ORGANISED RIDES

No.33 B A R RY ’ S B R I S TO L B A S H Good company and great cakes on a springtime circumnavigation of Bristol

Audax UK is a low-key fellowship of cyclists who are more interested in going far than going fast. Audax rides range from the entry-level 100km brevet populaire right up to the awe-inspiring challenges of the 1,200km Paris-Brest-Paris and the 1,400km London-Edinburgh-London. Bristol is an audaxing heartland, and the distinctive orange jerseys of the Audax Club Bristol are a common sight on audaxes across the country. The purple and gold colours of Bristol-based Las Vegas Institute of Sport are spotted rather less often. LVIS is “dedicated to the pursuit of sporting excellence without the unfortunate level of seriousness that seems to infect so many other sporting societies”. Barry’s Bristol Bash, a 116km circumnavigation of Bristol, is one of three audax rides the Institute organises on a single spring Sunday each year. All three rides start and finish in Long Ashton and have partially overlapping routes. Between them, they attract well over 600 riders, and the places are snapped up within a week of entries opening on 1 January. The Bash starts by crossing the Clifton Suspension Bridge then picking a way past the Severn Bridges towards the Vale of Berkeley. There, in the Gloucestershire village of Hill, is the first of the ride’s two refreshment stops. “Imagine walking into a small village hall, laden floor to ceiling with cakes,” says organiser Marcus Mumford. “The ladies of the local WI group make this the best checkpoint of any bike ride in the country. It’s so good, some riders fail to leave altogether.”

After climbing to the edge of the Cotswold escarpment, riders head south to a second WI-run refreshment stop at Doynton and then down the hidden valley of the River Boyd, crossing the Avon at Keynsham. Here they gird themselves for a real sting in the tail, the fearsome climb up Dundry Hill. Overall, the route is mostly quiet lanes and B-roads, with a couple of short stretches on busier main roads. “We want to be as inclusive as possible”, explains Marcus. “We have riders of all ages. As young as twelve and well into their seventies. There’s a much higher proportion of women than on many other rides. It’s not a macho event. It’s about enjoying being on the bike, eating cake and good conversation.” There’s no signage out on the route, so be prepared to follow the route sheet, or bring a GPS device with the route uploaded. Audax has a strong ethos of self-reliance, but there is also genuine fellowship among audaxers and plenty of mutual support out on the road. Most riders will stop to help another rider experiencing difficulties. Unlike sportives, audax events aren’t timed and there is no winner. Every finisher can consider themselves a winner, which is a message that would go down well with the late Barry Jaeger, the larger-than-life founder of the LVIS in whose memory the rides are named. For more on Mr Jaeger and his remarkable sporting career, check the website. Start/Finish: Long Ashton Last Sunday in March or the first Sunday in April £7 (+£2 for non AUK/CTC members) audax.lvis.org.uk 249

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY

LOST LANES WEST

JACK THURSTON has a life-long

LOST LANES WEST

36 GLORIOUS BIKE RIDES IN THE WEST COUNTRY JACK THURSTON

LOST LANES WEST will take

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MOBILE DEVICES & DOWNLOADS

All the routes are supported by downloadable route instructions plus a GPX navigation file for your GPS or smartphone.

£16.99