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down between fences. Turn right through the gate and follow right hand field edge. Just before the next field gateway, leave the well- walked path and drop down the field to the left. Bear right at the bottom.
13. Through two gates, cross Stiddicombe Creek via footbridge to left. Turn right through gate then bear up through field past waymarker post. Cross stile into wood, and follow waymarkers.
Tidal Road © Tony Atkin Hallsands Coast path © Bill Boaden
high tide: Turn left along foreshore as above, but go straight across at road onto public footpath over stepping stones and through grounds of Milburn Orchard above creek. Turn right along a track, bear right where you meet a fork, and turn right along the road. After 200m bear right up green lane signed ‘Drunkard’s Hill’.
8. At top of rise, bear right onto footpath across field, round field edge, and down through the dip. Turn left along the lane, then sharp right by Skipper’s Hill Cottage. Cross at the main road and take the path opposite, bearing right onto path above road.
14. Follow path along field edges above river. Cross a track and continue. Turn right along the next track after stile and steps.
15. At road turn right down through Bantham and back to the car park.
Avon Estuary Walk © Derek Harper
9. At the bottom turn right through the underpass into the car park. Turn left out of car park onto road.
10. At mini - roundabout turn right along main road over river. Cross by Bridge House onto permissive path alongside road. Rejoin road again over bridge, then path once more, to finally cross road and follow lane opposite at Bridge End.
11. At the top turn right along lane. At Higher Stad- bury bear left onto footpath, and bear left again where you join a further footpath.
12. Follow path along right hand field edges and then
Heritage Bantham was home to one of the most infamous smugglers in South Devon, named Nat Cleverly. The contraband booze ferried aboard his fishing boat was bought in the free port of Roscoff across the Channel. Cleverly was eventually brought before the courts, but found not guilty and released - by one of his best customers, the local magistrate. Lime kilns, like little grottos, can be seen close to the water’s edge at Stiddicombe, and below Milburn Orchard. Limestone brought up- river on barges was burnt in these
kilns to produce lime. It was spread on the fields, and also used to produce lime mortar, and limewash for cottage walls. Before the tidal road was constructed to Aveton Gif-
ford, a line of irregular stepping stones known as the ‘dog biscuits’ followed the stakes across the marsh. The car park by the bridge at Aveton Gifford was at one time the site of a saw mill. In those days the cut- ting was done with long double handled saws, worked by two men. One stood above, while the poor soul who drew the short straw worked from a pit beneath, getting showered with sawdust.
Aveton Gifford roundabout © Tony Atkin
Landscape ‘Avon’ means ‘river’ in the Celtic tongue. The Avon makes a 22- mile journey from its origins high on Dart- moor down through the wooded valley it has carved, to where it meets the sea by Bantham and Bigbury. The river is tidal below a weir 4 miles upstream from Aveton Gifford. The ‘ria’ type estuary was formed when rising sea levels flooded the river valley after the last ice age. The creek at Milburn Orchard is a wonderful example of salt marsh. This important habitat is formed on low
Start Bay from little Dartmouth
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