85 Enhance your walk by visiting Berry Head’s award-winning GUARDHOUSE CAFE Breakfast – lunch – cream teas – coffee Covid-secure takeaway (and table service when allowed) Cri l k poorapy hs Sac htg h Berry Head, Brixham 300m from car park TQ5 9AP
the cliffs below the Southern Fort. These black and white birds (known locally as the ‘Brixham penguin’) spend most of their lives out at sea and only come ashore during the nesting season. Their small wings
01803 855778
www.guardhousecafe.com Guillemot.
mean that flying appears hard work, but to compensate they are excel- lent swimmers and will swim down to depths of 50m/160ft to catch fish. They lay a single egg which is very tapered to stop it rolling off the narrow cliff ledges. Once the chicks are about 20 days old, the chicks will jump (as they are at this stage unable to fly) from their ledge into the sea, and the male bird will then guide them out to sea.
4. Moving onwards, continue out along the track to the lighthouse. The cliffs around this last part of the headland are unfenced, and so you are advised to keep children and dogs under close control. On the way, you will pass the fort’s artillery store which has been converted
into an information centre, with displays on the greater horsehoe bat. Just past here is the former lookout station for Brixham coastguard and the Berry Head lighthouse. It came to be known as the smallest, highest and deepest light in the British Isles - the tower is only 5m/15ft high, requiring no further elevation than that given by the 58m/180ft high headland itself, and the optic was originally turned by the action of a weight falling down a 45m/150ft deep shaft, now made redundant by its upgrade to LED about 18 months ago. Its white light flashes twice every 15 seconds and can be seen for 19 nautical miles. According to the nearby toposcope from here, you can see over 2,000 sq km/800 sq miles of sea, and on a clear day the Isle of Portland, 42 miles away on the other side of Lyme Bay, and most of the coast in between. Situated high on these cliffs pro- vides a good vantage point to spot passing sea mammals, with harbour porpoises being frequently sighted. In spring and autumn, many migrat- ing birds will be passing Berry Head, and around 200 different species have been recorded either on the headland or seen from it. In 2017 a humpback whale was seen feeding in the area.
5. From the lighthouse retrace your steps back out of the fort
Open daily from 9am (covid permitting)
to where the track splits, and instead of taking the track back to the car park, turn right. After about 100 metres at a waymark post take the path leading off on your left into an area of scrub. This path enters a quieter part of the reserve, and you are likely to see, or at least hear, some of the smaller birds who use the bushes to feed or nest in. Soon you will pass under a radio beacon used for air traffic control. This beacon can communi- cate with passing aircraft allowing them to pinpoint their location and altitude. With the widespread adoption of GPS systems, based on satellite navigation it is likely that this system and the beacons will become redundant within a few years.
6. From here follow the access track back down to the car park.
Public transport You can reach the start of the walk by bus no. 17 (hourly service) from Brixham town centre to Victoria Road. From here it is about a ½ mile walk to Berry Head Parking Pay and display at Berry Head Car Park (Postcode for Sat Navs: TQ5 9AP). Local maps and publications A-Z 1:25,000 map book: South Devon Walks along the SW Coast Path - Exmouth to Dartmouth
www.southwestcoastpath.org.uk
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