BRATTON CLOVELLY VILLAGE
TRAIL
General
The trail
is about 3 miles and should take you around an hour to walk. Walking boots or
wellingtons are recommended, especially when the weather has been wet. The trail is hilly in places. The trail is only
suitable for wheelchairs as far as Lower Voaden. DOGS TO BE KEPT ON LEADS. For a map of the route click here. Trail
Map
Church
We
suggest that you might like to start your visit to the village by looking at
the Church. (The key to the church may be obtained from the former Post Office). This is on the site of a Saxon church, but
the present building was started in the Norman period. Inside the walls are covered in wall
paintings of the 17th cent. which are very rare, English Heritage helped us to
uncover and preserve them. The alabaster reredos too is noteworthy.
Start of Trail – Old School
The trail starts from the Church gate in the village square. Look at the old National School building on your left, built in 1837. It has two chimneys as the boys' and girls' classes were taught in separate groups at either end of the room. Children were last taught here in 1900. The School room is not usable at the moment and it is hoped that its restoration will begin soon.
Court Barton Farm and village centre
Beyond the school on your left is the
entrance to Court Barton farm. Within the courtyard you can still see the old
round threshing-house in which a horse (sometimes a donkey) walked round to
work the machinery. This has
now been incorporated in to a private dwelling.
The winnowing was
done in the great barn behind. THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY.
The front
room of 1 Church Cottages adjacent the
entrance to Court Barton was used by the dentist when he visited the village
once a month.
The Post Office, until its recent closure, had been run by the same family since 1863.
The
village 'green' was formerly a saw pit in which timber was cut by two men using
a double-handed saw, one man stood
above the pit and the other below (who naturally was always covered in
sawdust). The railings were put up to celebrate Queen
Victoria's diamond jubilee. They fully
enclosed the green, entry being by the top gate which bears the letters VR
(Victoria Regina). It was sometimes used as a pound for stray animals. The War
Memorial was erected after the first World War and a section of railings was
removed for ease of access. The bench
was donated by the Women's Institute.
The long
house south of the green (now Midsummer Cottage) was originally a pub, The Ring of Bells,
and then until the 1970's the village shop which sold everything from groceries
to poultry-food and even hardware and paraffin. The upper end of the building (now Brenmoor Lodge) was an
agricultural storehouse. The stone
plinth outside was the right height for unloading a cart straight into the
storeroom.
Down the hill towards Boasley
The trail
now takes the road down the hill towards Boasley. This is a typical Devon road with high banks on either side and
no verge or pavement. Half-way down the
hill on the left is a house which was a working farm with land separated from
it.
From here
you get a good view of Eversfield Manor on the opposite hill. The Regency front and terrace were built
between 1790 and 1802 by William Wimpy (possibly the Squire Impy referred to by
Baring-Gould - see below) an incomer to Devon, who bought several farms and
land in the parish. The fine house was built, incorporating some of
an old farm named Culmpit, and called Culham Court. This is believed to be a childhood home of Rev. Sabine
Baring-Gould, the hymn writer, prolific author and 'Squireson' of the neighbouring parish of
Lewtrenchard. It was later
bought by Mr and Mrs Thomas Manning and renamed 'Eversfield Manor'; Mrs Elizabeth Manning was a great
benefactor to the church and village.
The Eversfield estate owned most of the farms and cottages within the village
for many years and more recently
Eversfield Manor was owned by James Hewitt.
The Mill
Three
quarters of the way down the hill over the right hand bank you can see the old
mill-leat, now dry and silted up.
The water turned the mill-wheel and was diverted from the river
by sluice gates high up in the woods on your left. At that time there was a bridge here across the leat and the road
ran straight down past the buildings to
the ford in front of the mill. Stand on
the present bridge (built about 1900 when the mill ceased working and the road
was raised) and look downstream to the stones of the old ford.
The mill
building, late 18th cent., replaced an older mill on the same site. It had an
'overshot' wheel and two pairs of mill-stones, so different grains could be
ground at the same time. The house
(originally thatched) was two buildings until 1850 and is mostly 17th cent. but
has older foundations.
As you
continue along the road, the lane on the right leads to Ellacott, now a
commercial animal feed mill; the
original house dated from the Elizabethan era, but is no longer visible. The house at the corner (former Culmpit Cottage) was
originally two small cottages built for workers on the Eversfield Estate.
'Culm-pits' were the workings on this slope of the valley where good quality
clay was obtained for the building of the cob houses of the village. Continue
up the hill past the gates to Eversfield Manor on the left until you come to
the start of the bridle way also on your left.
Bridleway and Devon Banks
At the
start of the bridle way you pass the back of Eversfield Manor. At the end of the buildings you get a good view
of the church on the horizon . The old walled kitchen garden here is now a rare
sight in this area.
Continuing
along this path you will pass between typical Devon Banks with their very rich
variety of flora and fauna. A Devon
Bank is unique in construction, being made up of stones on each side laid
vertically with an in-fill of earth;
the whole bank is then covered with the earth extracted from the ditch
at its base. Nature provides the covering.
You can see numerous different plants in a one metre vertical 'slice'. Depending on the time of year the plants
will include: primroses, bluebells, violets, orchids, red and white campions, wild strawberries, meadowsweet, honeysuckle,
foxgloves, wild crab apples, rowan, holly, ivy, also the flowers that love culm
land: ragged robin, tormentil, greater
bird's-foot-trefoil and devil's bit scabious. The indigenous trees are oak,
ash, beech, willow, mixed with hawthorn, blackthorn, gorse and bramble. Scurrying
along within the bank you can often see shrews and field mice. Fox
earths, badger sets and rabbit burrows may be seen in the many banks along the
walk. There are many varieties of moth,
butterfly and beetle also making their homes here; you may see the Speckled Wood, Comma, Red Admiral, Peacock, Gatekeepers,
Meadow Browns, Ringlets, and less frequently Clouded Yellows, Painted Ladies and Silver-washed Fritillary. A Devon Bank and its accompanying trees are
very good nesting sites for many birds;
often a buzzard is sitting on a fence post and at dusk there are owls
(including barn owls) and bats (including the relatively rare lesser horseshoe)
looking for a meal.
Further
along to the left you will get a good view of Birch Wood, and then on the hill
top two white houses. The one on the
left is Red Spider Cottage (named after the Baring-Gould’s book of the same
name, as this was the home of the character Honor Luxmore), and Hillside Farm
on the right. As you go round the corner you cross over one of the streams that
form the headwaters of the River Thrushel which flows ultimately into the
Tamar.
Lower Voaden
Continue
up the hill and you will come to Lower Voaden Farm. The
old milking parlor stalls can still be seen in one of the barns and the layout
of the farm yard was usual in most of the farms of the area. As you follow the path to the left of the
farm house you will notice a bay tree, planted at the end of the 19cent. Notice the site of an old grain mill
opposite the front of the house. This was also water driven.
Following
this track to the left of the house you can see, on your left, the site of the
old communal sheep-dip which was in use up to the 1970s. Continue on this path until you come up hill to a gate
straight ahead. At this point you leave
the bridle way (this continues on to the right for approx. 1 ¾ miles to the
main A3079 Okehampton to Holsworthy road) and go through the gate and turn left
into the field. The footpath continues down the hill - aim for the 'pack horse' marker in the
hedge slightly to the left of the angle of the wood - to a stile (with dog
gate) slightly hidden behind a holly tree on the edge of the stream.
Cross the next field, leaving the two large trees to your left towards
another holly tree, and 'pack horse' marker, at the edge of the stream and the
next stile. Now cross the footbridge,
through the water meadow and on to a third stile. Go up the hill towards the gate, keeping to the hedge bank along
the side of the wood on the left. If it is the right time of year there is a
wonderful display of bluebells in the wood.
Enter a
gate and go along a 'green lane' between two more Devon Banks, through the gate
and continue until you reach the road. This green lane also has a wonderful
display of flowers in the spring. Exit
the green land via another gate and turn left and follow this road into the
village.
Back
to the Village and starting point.
As you go
up the hill the brick house on the right was built by a Boer War survivor. He
named it Tugela after the battle site at the river Tugela in South Africa .
The Old
Rectory at the top of the hill on the left was built in 1902 to replace the
former thatched rectory (Old Domons) which burnt down and was sited much
further out of the village on the road
to Boasley. After the wall, on the left
of the road, is Town Farm and cottage (once the property of the late Alan
Clarke, diarist and historian, when he was MP for Plymouth Sutton).
Clovelly Inn 
You now
come to THE CLOVELLY INN. This was
formerly the Old Pack Horse Inn. In the bar is an oak fireplace lintel
inscribed 1789. There used to be two hand operated petrol pumps at the barn
opposite and stabling for horses. Do stop here for some refreshment after your
walk, but don't forget the last few yards back to your starting point in the
village square.
Old School House – Roadford Lake
As you
leave the inn walking back towards the village square look up to the road on
your right and see the old school house and the school which has been converted
into housing. If you continue along this road for about 3 miles you come to
Roadford Lake the largest lake in Devon.
This was constructed by South West Water in 1989 to supply both Plymouth
and North Devon with drinking water. It
is very popular tourist spot with walks, bird watching hides and activities
such as sailing and fishing. It has a gift shop and tea rooms. It was the subject of a Channel 4 Time Team
investigation before flooding and has a fascinating archaeological history.
The village 
The
village street has looked very much the same for the last 200 years, the main difference being the fact that there are
now only two thatched cottages.
Many of
the cottages were divided into two or three dwellings but even so they were not
workmen's cottages but housed tradesmen and craftsmen. The first cottage on the right (formerly
Inglenook) once housed a tailor and was a police house. Laurel Cottage next door was the District
Nurse's surgery. The old barn next used
to be a cowshed and then there is a pathway that leads up to Parsons Cottage
which also was 3 cottages. It was named
after the family who lived there for many years and was previously known
as Bank Cottages. Rose Cottage was a cobbler's and the
railings are original, they were left for the safety of children so were not
taken away for the war effort in World War Two. As you round the corner one of
the two village pumps is still visible on the left. Opposite are two cottages which were originally three. The final two dwellings on the left are Church
View and Mill Park. Church View is an
old 'longhouse ' (animals lived at one end, then a passage from front to back
and then the family's living quarters). Mill Park was the home of the doctor and had an extension added at the
back in the Edwardian era. You should now be back where you started and we do
hope you have enjoyed your walk through our village.
This project has been supported by the Local Heritage Initiative (LHI), which is a national grant scheme that helps local groups to investigate, explain and care for their landscape, traditions and culture.
LHI was developed by the Countryside Agency and is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Nationwide Building Society.