Christmas in Devon – SW Coast path to Clovelly | alison richards

After yesterday's rather unsuccessful hike (we ended up a little lost and couldn't find our path), we drove over to the coast of Devon to walk along the Coast Path. This path goes all the way around the southwest, which is really cool and I'd love to do the whole loop, but for today I contented myself with walking to lovely Clovelly.

We parked in a National Trust car park near to Hartland, but we drove past the little lane to get there and had to backtrack to find the car park! We left the car there, then set off on the path. It was a really lovely walk - we went down to a pebble beach with some cool rocks, past some little houses and cabins in amazing locations and up and down the hilly path.

Abandoned stone shed in an amazing location!

Lived-in house, also in an amazing location

Cool rocks at the coast. Also note the waterfall into the sea in the background

This pebbly beach is called Mouthmill beach. And this is Blackchurch Rock

We made it to a road and then walked on to Clovelly. I'd been to Clovelly a couple of times before but the most recent time had been with my aunt and cousin and I'd made the mistake of wearing really inappropriate footwear! This time, though, with hiking boots on, I was equipped to tackle the steep, cobbled streets of the lovely little seaside village. Also, while you have to pay to visit Clovelly by car (quite reasonably too because they get a LOT of tourists and need to create parking areas for cars), you don't have to pay if you visit on foot. It was good visiting in the depths of December too, as the village gets crammed full of people in warmer months.

Looking back up to the top where we started. It’s SO steep!

In red, one of the sleds that the inhabitants and businesses use to pull their belongings, shopping, suitcases or whatever else up and down the cobbles. They also use donkeys, who live at the top of the hill, but not so much these days. Clovelly is a car free village!

We got near the bottom of the pretty village where it turns into much more of an obvious fishing village, with a little harbour, boats, and fishing paraphernalia. If it looks familiar, Clovelly has featured in several (usually period) movies, most recently in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society movie of 2018. And quite rightly so, as the village still looks like it belongs in the past.

Next on the agenda was looking for somewhere to eat! We went to the pub at the bottom (since we were there) and there wasn't really anything too appealing on the menu. So we worked up an appetite and headed back up the hill to another pub. Whew, that's some hard work... you'd have good legs if you did that every day!

A very Christmassy door that I missed on the way down!

After lunch, it was time to get back to our walk, which headed inland now. It went down roads, across fields, past the prettiest pink house and then through a forest. Once we made it back, we took a scenic drive back home.