Walks and trails
9. Walk up road through Dittisham. After 350m, turn sharp left along Rectory Lane. 10. Turn right after 250m up track along public footpath. After a further 100m, turn left over stile and follow path up along field edges. 11. Turn left at the road. (Alternative easier route from here: continue along road past Bozomzeal then turn right and follow waymarkers through fields and round edge of wood. Turn left down green lane to rejoin main route at the bottom). 12. Main route: After 250m, turn left, signed ‘Permissive Path – Old Mill Creek’. Follow well-used track initially then follow waymarkers along field edges. 13. Where path meets green lane, turn left. After 200m, turn right down path which leads towards river. After crossing a stile cut diagonally down across next field, and through woods. 14. At bottom of steps bear left, and then left again where you join a further track. 15. At Old Mill Creek cross over bridge and follow road up out of valley. 16. At t- junction in Townstal, turn right along Archway Drive and then first left onto Townstal Crescent. 17. Cross main road at pedestrian crossing and turn left down hill. Turn first right along Church Rd and down hill. 18. Cross at next junction down Mount Boone. Fork right down Townstal Hill. At Vicarage Hill turn left down the narrow lane. 19. Turn right down steps of Brown’s Hill and bear left. At the bottom, head towards the church tower. When you meet the road turn left. Cross into Royal Avenue Gardens and onto South Embankment. Just past Station Restaurant turn left onto pontoon. Take passenger ferry to Kingswear.
Heritage
Dartmouth developed from two tiny hamlets on either side of a tidal creek to become a tremendously important naval and civilian port. The very earliest settlement in the area was actually up the hill in Townstal – through
which you pass as you re-enter Dartmouth to end the walk. Centuries ago, the threat of seafaring raiders made living down on the waterfront too hazardous, so settlers perched their dwellings on the high ground away from the river.
The grand- looking building up on the hill above Dartmouth is the Royal Britannia Naval College. Greenway House and its 300 acre estate was given to the National Trust in 2000 – it has a long and illustrious history. Best known as the home of Agatha Christie, Greenway was also the birthplace of the Elizabethan explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and a haunt of his half- brother Sir Walter Raleigh. Gilbert founded the colony of Newfoundland while searching for the North West Passage. He was the father of the famous cod industry of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland – a place where the waters were at that time said to be so teeming with fish that you could walk across the surface of the sea on their backs. Many local men were shipped across the Atlantic to work catching, salting and drying the cod.
Further downstream from Greenway – and visible from the Estate and several other points on the walk - are the old shipyards sited on both sides of the river. Dartmouth’s biggest employer for over 100 years, the yards built all kinds of vessels, including the steel yacht in which Chay Blyth sailed around the world from East to West. From Greenway Quay, you can see Gurrow Point, across the water and a little upstream. From this low promontory in 1894, early aviator Albert Liwentaal flew a plane he had designed and built himself. The plane got off the ground successfully, but unfortunately ‘landed’ again in the river.
On the top of the hill beyond Dittisham, you will see the basket of a fire beacon. The original beacon was sited up here to raise the alarm on the sighting of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Just before the head of Old Mill Creek you might spot an old piece of slatey stone with a ‘C’ on it, by the side of the road.
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