83 South Sands Sea wall. Looking across to Salcombe.
waterfront, combined with its deep waters, made it a lively centre of maritime activity. Its remote location meant that its main communication links were by sea, and its growing prosperity was based on its shipbuilding and associated trades. From the end of the eighteenth
century it was producing as many as three new ships every couple of years. Between 1796 and 1887 its shipyards turned out 200 vessels. The foreshore was developed through land reclamation and a growing population was drawn here by the romantic landscape and the warm climate resulting from the shelter afforded by the hills surrounding the estuary. In 1850 William White’s ‘History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Devonshire’ commented that Salcombe was considered ‘the warmest place on the south-west coast, as oranges, lemons and American aloes bloom in the open air, in the pleasure grounds of Woodville and the Moult’. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner
as ‘the first gentleman’s seaside residence in the area’, The Moult was built in 1764 and substantially improved in the mid nineteenth century, when it was owned by Viscount Courtenay, the eldest son of the Earl of Devon. Victorian historian and biographer James Anthony Froude often rented The Moult from Courtenay for the summer season (although he also declared that, thanks to the balmy climate, ‘Winter
in Salcombe is winter only in name’). In 1889, Alfred Lord Tennyson is said to have joined him there, penning his poem ‘Crossing the Bar’ in a summerhouse in the garden.
2. Turn right by the post box then, almost immediately, select the left fork. This is Moult Road. Carry on up-hill and ahead along the public footpath when the road turns to a track. Passing the bollards, go into the woods, forking left and crossing a stile to descend through trees to a road. Bear right to continue ahead to Combe, forking left by another postbox to climb to Rew.
3. Near the top of the hill, turn left onto the public footpath signed to Soar at Higher Rew. Going across the yard, follow the public footpath between the barns and then carry on above the campsite until you enter a field. Here you turn right and follow the right-hand hedges up the hill. At the top, turn right to go through the gateway and across an old cattle grid to the junction by the coastguard cottages at Soar. Carry on along the lane ahead, past the rear of the cottages, to the next junction, with a grassy area on your left above some converted barns.
4. Ignoring the footpath to your left, take the left-hand road beyond it to walk downhill along the drive signed Soar Mill Cove. Ignore another footpath on your left by the thatched
cottage at Lower Soar, carrying on until the road turns left below the hotel. Go through the gate on the right-hand side of the road, and follow the public footpath down the valley to the South West Coast Path at Soar Mill Cove.
5. Turn left on the Coast path above the cove to follow the acorn waymarkers back to Salcombe. Climbing out of the cove and dipping into another valley before ascending again, carry on along the Warren to the gate at the end of the open access area. Go through the gate then bear right to head across the field towards the lower gateway, signposted as the South West Coast Path route to Bolt Head. Follow the path down around Bolt Head and carry on, descending steeply to Starehole Bottom.
There are a number of warrens along the South Devon coastline, established and maintained during medieval times for breeding rabbits as a food source. Fishponds were common at the time, too, as well as dovecotes and duck decoy ponds. Warrens were introduced to Britain by the Normans in the twelfth century, when rabbits were also prized for their fur. To start with only the wealthy landowners bred rabbits, but by the thirteenth century many areas kept rabbits in ‘coneygarths’ or ‘pillow mounds’, and the practice spread through the population until the late eighteenth century, when
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