Sightseeing near Dartmouth UK

Whaler racing at the Dartmouth Royal Regatta

Our visit to Dartmouth happened to coincide with the first few days of the Dartmouth Royal Regatta.  Yacht racing took place outside of the river so we didn’t see that but our mid-stream mooring gave us a ringside seat for the daily rowing races along the river.  However, our primary reason for visiting Dartmouth was not for the regatta but to see our friends Nici and Neil.  Sadly Nici had to visit her mother at short notice and so we only saw her briefly but that didn’t stop us from spending the next few days sightseeing with Neil.

View across the harbour mouth from Dartmouth Castle to the castle on the Kingswear side.  During the
Napoleonic Wars, a chain was strung between the two buildings which could be raised to the sea surface to
stop enemy ships from entering the harbour and then lowered to the seabed to allow friendly shipping to
come and go

Neil (with Saffy, the Red Setter) and Nicky
 enjoying the view from the cannon emplacement.  
The building behind housed the windlass
 to raise and lower the defensive chain

On one of our first walks around Dartmouth and its environs Neil took us to Dartmouth Castle.  Building began in the 1380s at the behest of John Hawley, a privateering mayor of Dartmouth, and the castle was expanded and developed over the centuries, last seeing active service in WWII.  English Heritage now runs the site, focusing on the castle’s 15^th century development as a purpose-built platform for ‘ship sinking’ heavy cannon as well as on its 19^th century gun batteries.  After a glance at the single-entry prices we quickly decided to join English Heritage (15 months for the price of 12) and vowed to get VFM out of our membership by visiting a good number of English Heritage’s sites in the South West!

The views from the castle’s walls are, unsurprisingly, rather good, and the displays too are excellent, if somewhat reduced when we visited ‘due to Covid’.

View into the harbour from Dartmouth Castle

Exterior view of Berry Pomeroy Castle from what was the moat, showing the defended entrance which
originally had a drawbridge and portculis

The next day, we visited Berry Pomeroy Castle.  Billed as ‘the perfect romantic ruin tucked away in woodland’, it began life as the family castle of the 15^th century Pomeroys.  The external walls and gatehouse have/had all the essentials of a defended castle – moat, drawbridge with a counter-balancing portcullis, holes for pouring boiling oil or water on the heads of invaders and slit windows for defensive archers and, later, musketeers.

As the years progressed, the castle was extended and became less a castle more an impressive,
somewhat defended, house

Behind the external façade, the castle was developed through the Elizabethan and Jacobean years by the Seymour family (of Henry VIII’s Jane), into a grand mansion.

Original gatehouse from the inside of the castle

It’s all ruins now, of course, but standing inside looking up at the upper storey windows and viewing the remains of each floor level with their huge fireplaces, it is clear that this was the home of a very wealthy and influential family.  Why it fell into ruin was not clear to us but it makes a fascinating adjunct to the intact Elizabethan mansions we have visited – a bit like being able to view a body’s skeleton.

Rear of the house – look the impressive number of floors

Dartmoor

Top of the tor (not a very high one!)

With Dartmoor on our doorstep and the weather looking settled, we also took a walk on the moor, which included ‘bagging’ our first tor (not a high one and I’ve now forgotten its name!).  We had a lovely walk, as did Saffy, who relished plenty of time off the lead.  And the views from the top of the tor were beautiful too.

View from the top

Totnes Castle – a proper junior school lesson in Norman motte and bailey stuff!

On our way back to Dartmouth we stopped into Totnes again.  We’d visited the town on our return from Berry Pomeroy and had enjoyed a walk along the river as well as a short stroll around the centre, filled with medieval buildings now housing artists’ galleries and New Age shops.

And here it is in real life (plus ye olde picnic benches and welcome booth!)

This time we went at Nicky’s insistence who wanted to see the town’s well preserved motte and bailey, citing memories of lessons on Norman keeps at primary school.

Not a lot of space inside the defended motte

Archer’s-eye view

It’s a great little castle and the views from the ramparts of the motte are excellent.  Plus there’s a nice short walk around what was the moat.  But the emphasis is definitely on ‘little’.  Even compared to Dartmouth Castle, which is a compact place, Totnes Castle is small.

Lookout’s view across Totnes, though somewhat more built up than it was in the 11^th century!

We stayed in Dartmouth for 4 days in which time we had a lovely time with Neil and Saffy, and we even manged to complete a few boat chores: servicing the heads – an inevitable boat job, pickling the watermaker, tweaking the new electronics and generally checking over many of the systems which haven’t had as much care and attention lavished on them as they have been used to over the previous few years.

View from the mid-stream pontoon in
classic southwesterly clag

And we enjoyed a couple of delicious meals out and some good food in, including a barbecue, with Neil.  But on Tuesday 24 Aug, the wind set in again from the east and it was time to move on west to Falmouth.

And the regatta continues….

Dartmouth, Devon, UK