Combe Martin to Ilfracombe – 12th November 2023
Our heads touch the pillow at 10pm and we immediately fall asleep, exhausted by the day’s exertions. In theory we should sleep soundly until 8am. We do not. It seems that the hotel has been hosting a wedding reception with at least two of the guests drinking far more than is wise. At midnight we are woken by a couple outside our door loudly ‘effing and blinding’ because they can’t find their door key.
Half an hour later I drift off again but the curse of the early morning bladder wakes me at 3am. My legs and back ache from the previous day, but alas my brain has rested sufficiently to notice my discomfort. I get up and attempt to read by torch-light in the hope that sleep will come. If it does, then it is only in fits and starts.
Betty is flabbergasted that her knee is back to normal, an incredible testimony to rest.
Another filling cooked breakfast, complete with black pudding, fills us ready for our walk. It is raining outside, we are short on sleep and our legs ache. Walking 14 miles to Woolacombe is not about to happen. A quick phone call to friends we are staying with tonight sees us cut this to the 8 miles to Ilfracombe, where we will stop for lunch and get a lift to their place in Barnstaple.
The Pack o’ Cards Hotel has a long history, being built by the local squire George Ley in 1690. He paid for it from his winnings from a game of cards and designed it around a pack of cards – with four floors (suits), 52 stairs (cards in a deck), 13 bedrooms (cards in a suit) and 52 windows (although with the introduction of the window tax he bricked some up). All the bedrooms still have ornate plasterwork and large fireplaces.
The corridor outside our room at The Pack o’ Cards Hotel.
At 10.15am. it is raining, so we tog-up and it immediately stops. Don’t you just love the English weather? We not only decide to shorten our walk, but redistribute some of the load, with me taking one of Betty’s water bottles and some of her spare clothes. The walk down to the seafront at Combe Martin reveals that we have not been crippled by the previous day’s walk after all. This is encouraging, even if the weather is not. Yes it’s raining again.
The beach at Combe Martin has been in the news of late because the village stream is in a poor condition. Travelling the length of King Street it picks up various pollutants, although if it is like many other UK watercourses people may well be pointing at the local water companies. The stream crosses the beach, which despite being tiny, is the focus for a number of retail businesses in the town, including a watersports shop. Effluent on the beach is never going to be good for business.
The stream at Combe Martin crosses the tiny beach
View across the beach reveals last night’s descent (beyond the houses)
Sunday morning in Combe Martin on a wet November day is not busy and it appears we are the only walkers fool enough to be out today. The Coast Path takes us around the back of the local bakery, which looks a good place to stop for a coffee, but almost immediately takes us back to the main road before turning right, along a small side road. This dance between footpath and main road continues up the hill where a rock fall has blocked the original Coast Path. Eventually we turn off right again and past the Sandy Cove Hotel. Here we follow The Old Coast Road, a very pleasant thoroughfare eventually passing through woodland and which must have been blasted out of the bedrock a century or two earlier. The current road climbs a steep hill, suited to modern cars perhaps but not an 18th Century stagecoach..
View from Sandy Cove Hotel across to the Little Hangman, with Great Hangman hidden in the clouds
Ivy clad slaty bedrock blasted for the building of The Old Coast Road
This line of beautiful 200-300 year old beech trees were probably planted when the Old Coast Road was created
The Coast path turns right along the western edge of Broadsands Beach and the folly of mobile phone gazing rather than looking where I’m going nearly leads me to step off the 100 metre cliffs here.
Our route takes us through a camping park before we emerge back on the A399 at the impressive Watermouth Castle built in 1825. It is now the premiere attraction in the area, with its ‘weird and wonderful’ theming.
Broadsands Beach – could have been the most spectacular end-of-life view!
Watermouth Castle – never a real castle but built to impress a bride.
I confess that Watermouth Castle is of little interest to me. It is so obviously a folly which was never a castle in any sense of the word. However, Water Mouth Cove is a quite different piece of heritage landscape. It is a real gem of a cove, providing a safe haven for a large number of craft currently laid-up for the winter months. I can find very little about the cove anywhere, which must be the product of differential erosion by the sea, since the small stream which cuts across the cove will have limited erosive power.
The Warren is a headland of resistant rocks protecting the cove from Atlantic breakers. Today there is little evidence of just how ferocious wave action can be along this coastline. The tide is out enabling us to walk across the fairly muddy intertidal zone.
When the wind is from the West I can imagine large waves breaking into the narrow mouth of the bay, hence no boats actually at anchor. This comes as no surprise since it has only been 10 days since Storm Ciaran chased any watercraft out of the bay and onto dry land, with Storm Debi set to roll in in the next couple of days. Taking boats out and back into the water is not an inexpensive activity, so I imagine most owners just ride out the winter months until the stormy season has passed.
I spot a wooden framework which probably is little used these days, but which at one time would have been valuable for working on the hulls of boats, below the waterline. A spring high tide would have allowed a boat to float into place and settle on the frame as the tide ebbed. The following week or so would have seen decreasing high tide levels before the next spring high tides enabled floating it off again. Owners would have had to work quickly on the boat since time and tide wait for no man. Nowadays, boats are much lighter and are just lifted out by crane, to be worked on during the winter months on hard-standing above the high tide level.
Water Mouth Cove with The Warren headland off to the right.
Sailing boats take to the safety of dry land during the winter months
Wooden framework for working on boat hulls.
At high water walkers need to follow the busy A399, but low water offers the option of crossing the beach to a set of steps on the southern, landward side of the cove. At the top of the steps I pause momentarily, delighted to have found a fungus I have not seen in many a year. It is an earthstar fungus which every autumn goes through the same process. The top dries and splits into several rays which roll back, forcing the central mass of spores upward. This increased elevation raises the ‘puff-ball’ central mass above the relatively still surface layer of air, enabling passing wind currents to pick up the spores and carry them away to germinate.
The concrete steps leading up from the beach at Water Mouth Cove
An earthstar fungus – a fairly uncommon sight and a joy to find.
The narrow mouth of Water Mouth Cove
The coast path here is just below road level and offers excellent views across Water Mouth Cove. We are passed by a runner slipping his way along this treacherous route, although he does have time to share a joke about the wet weather conditions with us.
Shortly we are directed around Widmouth Head and Betty can’t resist poking fun at my earlier assertion that today would be level walking. It only involves a climb of some 40 metres but as the rain starts to pour from the sky and our feet threaten to disappear from beneath us, we are in fear of a repeat of yesterday’s debacle.
In fact it is our last real challenge before Ilfracombe, other than the climb back up to the A399. We get our first view of our destination at Ilfracombe, with the dizzy heights of Fort Hillsborough standing between us. Thankfully we have decided against climbing this 120 metre sting in the tail, excusing ourselves because we climbed it only 3 years ago. The view from the top is pretty spectacular but all I can recall is running up scores of steps with my lungs burning from the effort. That’s what you get if you are trying to keep up with a 6 foot 5 inch lifeguard who is half your age.
I pause for a minute to read about an interesting piece of history that took place on this stretch of coast. In World War Two Operation Pluto was put into action to supply oil to the armed forces after the D Day landings. The system was first tested here between Water Mouth Cove and Swansea 30 miles away across the Bristol Channel.
Operation Pluto information board
A final look back at Water Mouth Cove and The Great Hangman surrounded by mists.
Our first sight of Ilfracombe and Hillsborough Fort
Our chosen route takes us alongside the A399, through Hele Bay and past Hillsborough Fort, a large Iron Age defensive site. We cross through the rugby club and past the swimming pool before descending to sea level and the sanctuary of the Lime Kiln Cafe and Bar. This offers a great end to a most pleasant, if slightly wet, walk from Combe Martin. We order a late lunch and spot the couple with their dog, from yesterday at Woody Bay. We exchange war stories for a few minutes, with them offering the most telling of commentaries upon yesterdays exertions.
“You must be mad.”
Winter heliotrope alongside the A399 – within a month or two it will be one of the first flowers of the new year
Hele Bay at the foot of Fort Hillsborough. Many houses here have back gardens climbing some 50 metres up the side of the hill. Picking leeks in winter must give them a great appetite.
Replete from our lunch, we take a gentle stroll into Ilfracombe to sample the delights of this famous old Victorian seaside destination. Ilfracombe had a popular railway connecting it with Barnstaple, which was closed as a result of the Beeching report. I am told that the line was a busy one, but the then Conservative government was determined to erase branch lines from its portfolio, in favour of the wonderful new motorways it was intent upon building. That probably did for the town as much as anything. Today it is perhaps best known for the ferry to Lundy Isle and of course ‘Verity’.
Lundy is a lump of granite at the mouth of the Bristol Channel. It is one of 19 Marine Conservation Zones around the UK and is owned by The National Trust. I visited it many years ago on The Waveney, the last seagoing paddle steamer. That was a wonderful experience. A few years ago Betty and I booked to go on the modern equivalent, but withdrew when they told us the sea might be too rough to land (or return!). If I can’t land on Lundy I’m not interested in a sicky ride to regard it from the choppy waters of the Bristol Channel.
Verity is an enormous sculpture created by Damien Hirst, a local resident I gather. Taller than the Angel of the North, it depicts a pregnant woman, with half of her body cut away to reveal her innards. It is an excellent landmark for the town and apparently draws in many tourists. Perhaps its creation will go some way to make amends for Mr Beeching’s cuts.
Verity stands at the entrance to the harbour, along with a steep-sided Lantern Hill, capped by the Chapel of St Nicholas. Thanks to Storm Ciaran not a single boat is to be seen in the harbour, instead gathered upon the harbour wall like penguins who have jumped out of the water an the arrival of a killer whale. Tourism is the focus of economic life in Ilfracombe, but traditional occupations such as lobster fishing still survive.
Whilst we wait for the bus to Barnstaple, where we will meet up with our friends, we spend an hour wandering round Ilfracombe. Not much is open on a Sunday in November, but enough to give us a feel for the place. My impression is of a real social mix, with the obligatory seaside town poverty, but with a sprinkling of well-heeled glitter, including a very nice little art gallery next to the harbour.
Ilfracombe Harbour, the Chapel of St Nicholas on top of Lantern Hill and Verity
Storm Ciaran dragged masses of oar weed from deeper water onto the beach
The bus arrives as November darkness starts to enfold us, we’ll be back this way before too long to continue this section of the South West Coast Path, probably in warmer weather with our trusty little caravan in tow.