Bere Ferrers Station - River Tavy - Ley Farm - Liphook

Dave Pawley

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This walk for me is a walk back to my own youth. As a child I visited a working farm in Bere Ferrers every weekend. I spent many, many hours wandering freely around the peninsula and the walk takes me back to many of those places I walked as a child. I visited the salt marshes by the Tamar and I used to wander across them at will. The walk also visits Thorn Point and its shale beach. In high summer we used to walk down to the 'beach' to swim in the river, happy memories indeed.

This walk starts from the railway station that we used every weekend to travel out to from Plymouth. The riverside of the Tavy is first visited. The massive old buildings nearby indicate just how important the village was in the mining era. From the Tavy the walk takes up over the hill and down to Liphook Quay, an inlet from the Tamar, just ten minutes' walk from the farm I visited as a child. From the quay it is about half a mile along to Thorn Point with its 'beach' opposite Cargreen on the Cornwall side of the Tamar.

The Bere Peninsula well deserves the accolade as an area of outstanding natural beauty. It is the confluence of the Tamar and Tavy rivers which make it so remote and yet it is so accessible by train. It is a short walk but an interesting one for those with inquisitive minds. Visualise the miners living in Cornwall, taking the ferry-boat across to Thorn Point from Cargreen and walking from there to the mines in the Tamar and Tavy Valleys, maybe five miles or more upstream.

The Bere Ferrers Peninsula is steeped in history and the information plaque at the railway station makes an interesting read. The village was even mentioned in the Domesday book, but not as Bere Ferrers. Read the additional information section to find out how this strangely named village got its name.

Enjoy the walk; I certainly enjoyed walking there again to obtain the photographs for this Walkingworld route.

England - South West England - Devon - Tamar Valley