Ivybridge Viaduct - Pit Hill Farm - Hall Farm - Henlake Down

Dave Pawley

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Ivybridge is located right at the south-west corner of Dartmoor National Park with moorland down close to the down although 500ft above it. There are many routes up to the moor from in or near the town and this walk takes you up to Hanger Down via a route which runs roughly parallel to the River Erme, which runs through Pithill Woods Valley below. The route described up towards the moorland down keeps you above the thickly wooded Erme Valley in the main, but there is an alternative route which runs up through Pithill Woods, very close to the river. Although a good route initially, after about a mile the ground becomes very soft and particularly muddy and boggy. Although it is a public right of way, duckboards are needed in places, to avoid that sinking feeling, particularly after rain in winter.

Until Devon County Council redresses the problems associated with this right of way through Pithill Woods, the route described for this walk is the one many walkers choose to take. If you decide to take the route up close to the Erme, keep close to the river until you are eventually directed away from it to join the walk described at Waymark 8. Beware the muds of March though (and of many other months too).

The first half of the walk described is therefore along country lanes, woods and fields and it is not until the second half of the walk that you meet moorland down. The first downland is Hanger Down which has a distinctive circular copse of trees at its highest point. It is permissive open access land and is in the process of undergoing a transformation from cultivated grassland to true moorland down, as part of an Environmentally Sensitive Area scheme which is administered by the Rural Development Service (part of DEFRA) in Exeter.

Once across this wide expanse of open land, you pass though another permissive path onto the gorse-covered Henlake Down, which you walk around and descend from to return through woods to the start point of the walk.

England - South West England - Devon - Dartmoor