Post by Dave on Jul 19, 2021 15:32:39 GMT
Berry Pomeroy Castle Cycle Ride 19th July 2021
Yesterday on the 18th July I passed the 1000 mile mark since I converted my cycle into an Ebike a few months ago. Up until today I have been using three main routes, each different in their own way but I thought it was about time to try a new ride My three rides were the Berryhead ride, Stoke Gabriel and Galmpton and the beach ride that included Cockington. Of those three rides the beach one was always the most incident packed one as people either stepped into the cycle lane on Paignton seafront, or a car was driving in it.
Preston seafront was not much better with people choosing to walk on the clearly marked cycle path and then having a go at you for riding along it on your bike. It is a ride I only do on a day in the week and certainly not at the weekends. So yes a time for a change and after checking on a map this morning I came up with a new route but once on it my plans quickly changed.
My plan was to head over to Blagdon and down Lower Blagdon Lane and then turn down Widdicombe Lane. I came across a lovely cottage in Lower Blagdon Lane and soon came to Widdicombe lane that crossed at the end of Lower Blagdon Lane. I turned right but the further I went the narrow the lane became. I then heard running water as I turned a sharp bend right into foot deep mud and water covering as far ahead as I could see.
Bike now caked in mud ( I hate my bike getting dirty) I decided to turn around and see where this lane would take me the other way and I was not disappointed. I was now in lanes I never knew existed and ones that are seldom ever used by car drivers so I felt safe enough riding along them.
I finally came out on the Berry Pomeroy Road near the big transmitters so decided to ride to the castle. I had forgotten just how far down a lane the castle was from the entrance off another lane that comes off the Berry Pomeroy Road. It has been a very long time since I was last there, the café looked closed and I only saw one couple visiting the castle.
Within the 15th-century defences of the Pomeroy family castle, looms the dramatic ruined shell of its successor, the great Elizabethan mansion of the Seymours. Begun in around 1560 and ambitiously enlarged from around 1600, their mansion was intended to become the most spectacular house in Devon, a match for Longleat and Audley End. Never completed, and abandoned by 1700, it became the focus of blood-curdling ghost stories and a place you would not want to visit in the dark for sure.
I headed back up the long lane and turned right through berry Pomeroy until I came to the main Paignton to Totnes road and then turned off this road to head towards Aish as I was hoping to take a photo of Parliament Cottage. This was the place it is claimed William of Orange held his very first parliament after landing at Brixham. Sadly the cottage had scaffolding all around it and so I did not bother taking a photo of it.
I was soon back home and the very first job was to wash all that mud off my bike, buying the Ebike kit was one of the best things I have ever bought as now I am out nearly every single day on my bike and no longer spending so much time indoors on my computer.
