August 23, 1992: Witheridge to Tarr Steps 

Sunday August 23rd began brightly enough. I noticed this as I took my first stroll down to the end of the first floor corridor –where the Angel Inn had located its toilets. Our landlady had proved to be much more accommodating than we had expected and she had agreed to give us breakfast at 8:00; this early start was needed because we had sixteen and a half miles to cover – our longest day. To stoke up on energy we each ordered the full breakfast, though I don’t think we managed to down three sausages each. We did offload some of the bacon onto a little blotchy-faced black and white cat who found us irresistible and attacked our legs under the table cloth – making a game of our every movement.

I settled the bill in cash and we were outside the building shortly before 9:00. Our first task was to get some more tabloids, still redolent with the latest scandals in the royal family, for boot stuffing. Gavan went over to the newsagent while I took off my sweatshirt. It seemed quite pleasant and sunny as we marched out of town five minutes later, but a retarded villager in donkey jacket and wellies mumbled something to us about our trying to beat the rain.

We headed back down the A373 for a block, turning off on the road to the parish hall. Then we crossed into a field and headed north, our feet in grass once again. Field paths heading in a northeasterly direction lead us down to the Little Dart River. It wasn’t always clear whether we belonged at the riverside or one field away from the water but our direction was clear enough. Much of this was muddy. We passed a farmer and his dog.

I had proposed to Gavan, during our long walk in the rain the day before, that we ought to be prepared to tell stories to one another to help pass the time. I spent a good deal of this morning talking about incidents in my high school life. I talked about the R.O.T.C. and high school dress fashions and I would have talked about the Boy Scouts but Gavan, who had not lasted more than a few weeks in the Cubs, denounced this topic as uninteresting. He had already exhausted his topic: a love affair with a new Elizabeth this summer.

It took us quite a while to clear the forest and the fields that accompanied the river but eventually we reached a road and turned north at Bradford Cottages. At Bradford Bridge we passed over the Little Dart itself and this gave us access to Bradford Cross and Bradford Barton. A long section of road walking followed but this stretch was more pleasant than the Yeoford Road. Views were better and there was no traffic and, in spite of some elevation rise, we were making good time.

We reached a t-junction at Creacombe Parsonage Farm and turned right. Gavan, inspired by some of my recollections about life on Westmorland Street, was just at this point regaling me with yet another chapter in the malicious cruelty visited on him by his older brothers in the name of fun. I believe this one concerned the time his brothers took his hand, while he slept, and submerged it in warm water so he would wet himself. A mother and daughter on horseback approached us and the mother also said something about our trying to beat the rain. Obviously there was an ominous weather forecast for today.

Just before Creacombemoor Cross I had Gavan take my picture, posed against the backdrop of the Creacombemoor Beech Trees in the distance. This was because I had just reached my mile 2200. We passed the Old Toll House on the B3321, now a kennels, and continued northward on a track that eventually became an earthen path squeezed beneath a line of beech trees. I remember that I was just finishing up the story of my first crew cut as we emerged onto our first stretch of moorland in days, the gorse and heather of Knowstone Outer Moor. At a paved road we turned north, passing some wild horses, and descended to the Sturcombe River bridge abutment – where we had a brief rest. A family on bicycles whizzed past us.

Then we climbed up to the North Devon Link Road, another busy highway, and, after passing over it, reached a lonely bit of no longer useful tarmac on Knowstone Inner Moor. We continued forward past Knowstone Moor Cross as the elevation leveled off again and views of the hills and valley on our left proved that we were not far from Exmoor. At one point I stepped into a field in which a red tractor was spreading muck so that I could take a picture. Gavan wanted to be photographed against the same backdrop with his camera.

We probably should have kept to the road into Knowstone but the TMW insists on a more direct but muddy approach over stiles and into a grassy field above the church. I paused here too for a photo, anxious to finish a roll, and Gavan took a picture as well. Then we hopped a last stile and joined the mob, including our bicycling family, at the Mason’s Arms.

No sooner had we gotten inside than it started to rain. We had decided to have pub food today but we were a bit surprised to discover a fancy Sunday lunch menu – though not too expensive at that: my local pork in cider was only £4.50. Gavan ordered a curry and we found two low seats next to a little table in an anteroom. It was hard to get the attention of Michael Hordern behind the bar and while we were waiting Gavan bummed a cigarette from a barfly. While we were waiting for our food he discovered that his $65 sunglasses had gone missing. He hadn’t been wearing them – but he did keep them in his camera case and that had recently been in action.

Since he was sulking I urged him to walk back up the hill as far as the point where I had taken his photo; he put on his rain jacket and dashed off. He was gone about 20 minutes. In the meantime I overheard one interesting conversation and participated in a second. Two schoolteachers were discussing the poor results of some favorite students on the recent GCSE. “Well we taught her to write concise summaries,” the English teacher said, “Whereas the examiners wanted something more …” Here the art teacher offered “ambiguous.” “No,” her friend replied, “more ..” “Discursive,” I thought to myself. “Discursive,” the English teacher concluded.

At the table next to me was a young teenage girl who had heard my accent and was asking me about America while her dad tried to get served at the bar. She was a local lass, devoted to horses. I asked her about her schooling. “If my mom drives me to school it takes half and hour,” she said, “if my dad drives it’s fifteen.” I asked her if she planned to go to university but I got the response one might expect from someone of her gender and class in under-achieving Great Britain – a look of complete incredulity.

Gavan returned. He had walked all the way up to the field with the red tractor before returning disconsolately to the field next to the church – where he found his glasses! He needed some help in figuring out what to do with the condiments that arrived with his curry and then he went to the loo to put on his rain pants. He missed an unusual accident. Our hostess, clearing our table, caught a foot on a chair and crashed to the floor, dishes flying everywhere. The teachers picked up the crockery and the dad picked up the flustered woman, whom he knew. She seemed dazed at first but a few minutes later she was limping around all right.

I put on my rain pants, put away the TMW map, and – fortified by a final whiskey – we prepared to go. We had arrived at 12:30 and it was now almost 2:00 and we still had eight and a half miles to go.

We set off in the rain along a dirt road over the Crooked Oak Stream. There was a pottery at Owlaborough with an “open” sign but the idea that anyone might just be passing this remote site was ludicrous. As we continued over Owlaborough Moor we entered a woods and endured some rather mucky surfaces. We emerged onto a motor road just south of the A361. The rain was beginning to penetrate and the afternoon was becoming quite uncomfortable. There was supposed to be a path just inside the wood on the south side of the A361 but the track seemed to have been harvested along with the trees and so we retreated to the highway and used it to reach the Jubilee Inn at a road junction.

A couple had their thumbs up on the highway and cars were whizzing by without paying any attention. “Very friendly in this part of the country, aren’t they?” the chap commented as we headed north. We used roads to make progress through the rain for the next few miles. At Bussell’s Moor Cross we turned left and at Highaton Head Cross right. We then descended over a dismantled railway at Yeo Mill Bridge to the Partridge Arms Farm. This b&b seemed to have a license, though we were obviously here at the wrong time to take advantage of its cheer. To make matters worse, after crossing the Yeo River we had a stiff climb to Yeo Mill Cross, where we turned east.

More farms were passed before our route turned north and a field path took us over to the village of West Anstey, where the church tower served as a good landmark in the mist. Then we returned to tarmac, passing the access road to Badlake Farm. I tried to cheer us up a bit by reminding Gavan that this was the three quarters mark on my Paddington lap but in fact we still had four and half miles to go and the rain continued to pelt down. At Badlake Moor Cross we reached a dirt track that took us over the top, at 356 meters, of Woodland Common.

The waymarking, as we were now approaching Somerset, was not too good, and, as I had no access to maps, we were heavily reliant on Gavan’s reading of the OS map. He did very well. When we reached Vennford Stone there was some ambiguity about how to get down the rocky hillside ahead of us but Gavan knew we had only to reach the motor road in the valley of Dane’s Brook to be on the right track. This was beautiful moorland countryside but you had to be very careful where you put your foot down on the uneven surface. There was practically no path.

When we reached to road we turned left, used Slade Bridge to cross the county boundary, and headed steeply uphill. Around a corner we were given access to a large field and crossed over its top, without path, as the rain pounded away. Visibility had been so poor that we hadn’t seen the village of Hawkridge, whose streets we now entered. I was encouraged by the fact that Hawkridge is the postal address of the hotel we were aiming for and, indeed, there was a sign with a hotel symbol and “1 mile” at a crossroads. Full marks to Gavan for not asking if we could take this route, which would have saved us a mile, rather than continue on the official route. We wanted to make certain we were leaving the village by the right TMW road, and thus we fished out the guidebook and Gavan thrust it into the shelter of a rabbit hutch in someone’s front yard to have a dry look.

We purists, disdaining all short cuts, now headed up a road behind the schoolhouse and took to the fields above Hawkridge. Part of the route took us behind Great Cleeve Wood along a sunken lane that was, in this mist and at this hour, extremely dark indeed. It was with great relief that we burst out onto open hillside to descend through Row Down Wood and onto a track up to Parsonage Farm. There didn’t seem to be any waymarks around here and it took us a while to figure out how to get up around the farm and onto the ridge that pointed straight downhill to the Tarr Steps. All semblance of conversation had long ago ceased; even the stiles and gates had been rained out. I can’t remember a more miserable afternoon.

We were on our last mile. After passing along a raised bank we descended a track that took a dogleg to the right, again in extremely dark woods. Gavan made a very clever judgment as we neared the River Barle; this was a decision not to head down to the Tarr Steps themselves but to turn right on a dirt road that, only a few steps later, suddenly revealed the Tarr Steps Hotel. What a welcome sight this posh hostelry was. We made our way past the Range Rovers, the Jags, the Beamers, the returning fishermen and three English Spaniels and rang the doorbell. Katy appeared. “In spite of all appearances to the contrary,” I said, “we belong here.” It was 6:30.

She asked us if we wanted to take anything off but we asked to be shown to our room immediately. So we were taken to room 19 on the first floor, a lovely large room with private bath and a view over a large meadow to the hills on the opposite side of the Barle. We tossed off our dripping clothes and Gavan dived into a bath while I hung up everything and stuffed our boots and spread out all the maps to dry. It was an expensive stopover, some £60 pounds for b&b and evening meal, but we certainly deserved some luxury tonight, something a jealous Dorothy found it hard to take in when I phoned her later.

I had a lovely bath and used some of the free shampoo. At 7:30 we descended to the little bar, a very comfortable salon, where all the other guests were seated around our proprietor, Desmond – who looked a bit like John Gielgud and had a magnificent plummy voice. He was quite interested in our walk and so were many of the other guests, including two couples having a romantic weekend. Two of the gentlemen had ties on and the attractive women were gussied up in frocks.

Katy had caused our hearts to dip just a bit when she had told us that, this being Sunday, there would only be a cold buffet tonight. But when we were invited to take up tables in the dining room our fears were soon dispelled. We were served a hot vegetable soup. We ordered a bottle of chardonnay. The buffet offered every kind of meat, pink roast beef, smoked ham, and a giant smoked salmon. There were also wonderful salads and a choice of desserts. It was the best meal of the trip.

We had coffee in the lounge while Gavan smoked a cigar and I read the Sunday papers and ate some fudge. A delightful long-haired grey cat, who had earlier failed to get in through a window of the bar, now succeeded in melting the heart of one of the ladies, who opened the lounge window. The cat then went from lap to lap, kneading and purring in rapture.

Gavan and I were pretty tired after our long excursion. We drew all the curtains against morning light and again had an early night.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 7: Tarr Steps to Simonsbath