Ten mile walk to the birthplace of “Tarka the Otter”

The New Roadbridge

Here’s some free advice to anyone who wants to visit the birthplace of Tarka the Otter, hero of the eponymous, and deservedly famous, animal story by Henry Williamson. Hire a bike. Even dedicated walkers such as we would surrender temporarily the belief that a first-class walk is better than a first-class ride along the “Tarka Trail” between Bideford and Great Torrington. We had expected an informal path on the old railway line which follows the River Torridge upstream, but discovered instead a tarmac roadway along which mountain bikes, racing bikes, bikes drawing baby-trailers, and even tandems sped, peddled often furiously by riders in plastic helmets which made them look like extras from “Star Wars”. They were all scrupulously polite but it was a far cry from the solitary wilderness of Exmoor to which we are accustomed. We had acquired a copy of the 1970’s film of “Tarka the Otter”, which was filmed on the Torridge in the very places which Williamson had described, and we were determined to see them for ourselves.

We parked in the “long stay” car park on the quay at Bideford, and bought four hours for £2. It proved a false economy as, even at our best Somerset Light Infantry pace, we only just managed to reach Tarka’s birthplace and to return before we might have attracted some gross civic penalty. We set off down the quay, where a continental food market was in full swing, and crossed over the river by the handsome stone bridge which dates back some six hundred years.

We joined the “Tarka Trail” at the site of the old Bideford Station. No trains have run here since the line was closed in the 1960’s but there were some carriages, one of which promised, but did not deliver, “teas”, which are probably restricted to fete days, and a shunting engine, in front of the old signal box.

 

As we walked eastwards, we passed a path which led down to a cycle hire, and it wasn’t long before a steady stream of its customers began to pass us. They were never obtrusive but, like a tiny piece of grit in your boot, they irritated; better by far to join them. For most of the way, the trail is overhung by the branches of the surrounding trees, which gave welcome relief from a broiling sun but also obscured the river and the surrounding countryside.

There are, however, fine views over the estuary and the town. As usual with the Bristol Channel, the tide was out.

Bideford once was a hive of activity, including some lime kilns on the bank which were serviced directly from the water with limestone brought from South Wales.

A local grandee, Lord Rolle, had a canal constructed to import the limestone further into the hinterland to provide fertiliser for the surrounding farmland. He started his project in the 1820’s, a little late in the day for canal expansion. We passed the remains of an ingenious lock system, soon to be made obsolescent by the very railway on which we were walking.

At last we came to the iconic bridge which overshadows “Owlery Holt” where Tarka was born. This splendid structure once carried the canal over the river.

The twisted roots of the trees still look as if they might obscure the refuge of an otter. The cyclists did not pause. As we took our photographs, a man walking the other way called out cheerily, “No otters today then?”

Further on, after we had passed a summer camp for children which boasted a magnificent “death slide”, we came to Beam Weir. “Below the fish-pass the water rushed in a foamy spate. Above, it slid black and polished,” wrote Williamson.

We returned the way that we had come. The skyline of Bideford features a wonderful dome on the top of “Quay House”. Nowhere could we discover the reason for this exotic appendage. One might expect that it had once housed the Bideford cinema, probably with a name such as the “Alhambra” or “Granada”, promising Arabian nights of entertainment here in North Devon, but there was no evidence of a suitable entrance into such a magical interior.

We did visit, however, the market, buying two delicious French sausages and a bottle of nectar fit for gods, cidre bouché from Normandy. It makes a change from scrumpy.

As we neared the car, we came face to face with a suitably forbidding statue of that muscular Christian, Charles Kingsley. Kingsley’s famous fable, “The Water Babies”, was part of my very early reading. Somehow I could never bring myself to appreciate the sooty little chimney sweep Tom’s luck in being drowned and becoming a plump, naked cherub with fishy fins, as depicted in my illustrated edition. Even as an infant, I would have preferred to be dirty, exploited, but unmistakably alive.

Kingsley also wrote “Westward Ho!” a buccaneering story of privateers based on Bideford. The book was a smash-hit when published in 1855, so much so that some Victorian entrepreneurs gave its name to a hotel which they built outside Bideford on the southern tip of the Torridge estuary. Gradually a seaside resort grew up around the hotel, and it too was named “Westward Ho!” the only English town named after a novel and with an exclamation mark. I have always thought, however, the wonderfully named Durham colliery village of “Pity Me” worth the same punctuation.

We set off to Westward Ho! in search of our literary cream tea. Just as Tarka the Otter now gives his name to holiday parks and even a tennis centre, so the famous historian, novelist, and clergyman is remembered in road names, hotels, and caffs. We were not heading for the Kingsley caff, however, but to “Tea on the Green”, a celebrated and crowded teashop. We managed to sit outside with views of the waves rolling in on to the miles of sands.

For reasons that remained obscure, the set teas were named after 1950’s film stars. Remaining loyal to my Bristolian roots, we plumped for the “Cary Grant”, the original of which was born Archie Leach in Bristol in 1904. Calling a tea consisting of two huge fruit scones, a huge bowl of strawberry jam, a huge bowl of cream, and a huge pot of tea, a “Cary Grant” at least was not as eccentric as calling a version of the same, “Audrey Hepburn”. I still cannot see in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” that sylphlike, gaminesque figure, in headscarf and raincoat, dumping her cat in an alley in a torrential rainstorm without bursting into tears.

We were warned that we would not finish all the scones, and we didn’t, but they were absolutely superb. They were not too heavy, not too light, but like Baby Bear’s porridge, just right. We took one away with us in a napkin. Amidst the “adult gaming” arcades, peeling bungalows, fishnchip shops, caffs, lounging youths, girls in shortest shorts, blue blue water and sundrenched sands, this was a tea to remember.