Post by Dave on Sept 13, 2010 18:17:11 GMT
Blackdown Rings & Gara Bridge
Another wonderful Sunday spent with Carol and today we spend time exploring an Iron age hill fort followed by a walk to Gara Bridge where we were able to get a few small glimpses of the old Primrose line and Gara Bridge station. I just must remember in future if you walk from an old iron age HILL FORT down through the valley to the bottom where the river Avon is flowing, you have to walk back up again and I’m sure it was much stepper going back to the hill fort than it was walking down to Gara Bridge.
To get to Blackdown Rings just head for loddiswell and drive through the village, then drive for a further two miles or so and you come to a very small crossroads and you need to turn right up the single track road. Very soon you will come to an entrance into a small car park where you can leave your car to walk to Gara Bridge once you have explored the hill fort.
The rocks underlying the site, Staddon Grits, can be seen in the commemorative stone by the site entrance. These are harder than the Devonian slates found to the north and south, so resulting in some of the highest land to the south of Dartmoor. Devon's oldest rocks, those of the Start Complex, are just visible in the distance to the south.
Blackdown Rings was originally an Iron Age hillfort, probably built sometime after 400 BC. It was defended by a massive earth and stone rampart topped with a timber palisade, and a deep outer ditch. Large wooden gates would have guarded the entrance to the fort. Inside, people lived in small thatched roundhouses.
I have yet to find out what happened to the fort and when people stopped living in it but I do know over a thousand years later, the site attracted new residents. Following their triumph at the battle of Hastings, the Norman invaders moved in during their conquest of the South West in 1068. They built a 'motte and bailey' castle inside the old earthworks - a fortified tower on a raised mound within its own rampart and ditch.
The site later became forgotten and deeply overgrown, but in 1988 was given to the Arundel Trust - a local charity originally founded back in 1591. The Trust has restored the site so that it can be enjoyed by the public.
There was only one other couple at the fort the whole time we spent there and it really has such wonderful views looking down to the Avon valley and beyond and from the bailey part of the castle you can see Haytor rock. It’s so peaceful and the only sounds you hear are grasshoppers rubbing their back legs together.
Once you have spent all the time you want at the hill fort go back to the car park and walk out onto the road and turn right and walk until you come to another road and once again turn right. The road is very narrow and is a wonderful Devon country road and in all the time we were walking on it, only one car went past us on the way to Gara Bridge and none at all on the way back.
The banks on either side are full of wild flowers and there are many holes that I believe might be badger holes or maybe even foxes but I think due to their size they are more likely to be badges holes., I’m sure I heard somewhere that badgers let foxes have their young in their sets sometimes so who knows just who was at home anyway.
After walking past the entrance of some hotel you can’t even see, you come to a poultry farm that must be classed as free range as the chickens can get out side. The owners might be new as it looks like they are doing up the buildings to live in them as they are only living in a caravan on the site at the moment.
Down and down the road keeps going and past a cottage called Toads Hall and then on a left hand bend at the point the road starts to flatten out you get to see an iron bridge that carried the Primrose line over the river Avon. We stood by the padlocked five bar gate and I was really temped to climb over it and stand on the bridge, but there is a shack beside the track that looks like someone might live it in judging by the small vegetable patch beside it, so I decided not to risk someone coming out and shouting at me.
The road is now flat and on your right is the river Avon and you are now in the Higher Avon Valley and you may have read the thread I did about the walk Carol and I did last month “ Loddiswell & Lower Avon Valley”
davesworld.proboards.com/thread/52/loddiswell-lower-avon-valley
A few yards further on you can see through a gap in the trees the old Gara Bridge station that is now someone’s home, I decided not to bother taking a picture of it from there as I was sure there would be a better view of it further on. That turned out not to be the case and I had to settle for taking a picture of the station from that spot on our way back to the hill fort where our car was parked.
Soon you are at Gara Bridge and what a wonderful little bridge it is, very narrow and such a hump in the middle for such a short bridge and the tarmac at the highest point of the hump tells its own story of the underside of cars etc that must have grounded on the hump itself.
This bridge was not part of the Primrose line and is only a road bridge over the river Avon and don’t get to close to the edge as the walls are only a foot high and even a short ass like me was in danger of falling over it into the river.
Fifty yards on and you come to a spot where there must have been a level crossing as on the right there is a gate and its very clear that beyond the gate is the old Primrose line and on the right is the entrance to the station and I expect the driveway you see now that has a stone cattle grid at the beginning of it was in fact once the line itself.
I was really tempted to walk into the grounds of the station, there are no signs saying its private or even a house name plate, but I decided it would best not to as there was also nothing to say it was alright to go and take a closer look.
Apart from one other dwelling on the left and the station itself I saw only two other houses at Gara Bridge and unless the station has been added to since it closed down, I wonder not only why a station was built at Gara Bridge but also why it was built as big as it is. Maybe Barton and come up with some old pictures of the station and a reason why a station was built at Gara Bridge.
Time to start the long up hill walk all the way back to the car park at Blackdown Rings and the sun was shinning brightly and I was so glad Carol had gave in and bought me a sweatband like the tennis players wear as when I get over hot my head leaks like a sieve and runs down my neck and face. OK I may have looked a bit funny wearing it and I know that as Carol laughed when I put it on but it did the trick
Up past the poultry farm and the dog that had been running loose and had barked at us when we went past it the first time is now in a playpen with a boy aged around 10 and a girl aged around 8 years old, I said to Carol I was not surprised those who keep chickens locked up do the same to their children. #cheesy#
We got back to the car park and then drove to Kingsbridge to get some food, there we were sat on the Quay eating a takeaway listening to a live jazz band, boy I hate jazz and wished it was ELO doing a concert, never mind it was free and to be honest I started to enjoy it in the end.
