Discovering Dartmouth
All pastel-and-white, higgeldy-piggeldy charm, Dartmouth scuttles up steep hills with river views. In its winding streets and narrow lanes are shops with character – don’t miss the Simon Drew gallery in Foss Street – and overhanging houses built in Elizabethan and Tudor times. The Cherub Inn still retains its 14th-century timbers; St Saviour’s church, consecrated in 1372 and full of treasures, was built by merchants made rich in the Bordeaux wine trade.
Along the riverside, an ornate Edwardian bandstand is rooted amid gardens dotted with palm trees and sub-tropical plants. Nearby at the Tourist Information Centre, see the Newcomen Engine, a memorial to Dartmouth ironmonger Thomas Newcomen who invented the Atmospheric Engine in 1712 and which heralded the Industrial Revolution.
The town had a railway station but no railway line – that’s in Kingswear, a mirror image of hill-climbing houses across a harbour busy with ferries and small craft.
There’s maritime history at every turn. The Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower and Speedwell called in for repairs at Bayard’s Cove in the summer of 1620, its boat-builders’ houses and cobbled quay still a memory from television’s The Onedin Line. In 1635, when the ornate and pillared Butterwalk was built in Duke Street, trading ships could sail right up to it. If you love old maps and models of ships, don’t miss the little museum there. Housed in a 17th-century merchant’s house it has a great collection of miniature ships in bottles.
A ‘stone frigate’ presides grandly over the town – the Britannia Royal Naval College. It’s where Princess Elizabeth first met Prince Philip and their sons Charles and Andrew trained for life on the high seas.
Guarding the narrow estuary entrance, 15th-century Dartmouth Castle was the first castle in England to be constructed to withstand artillery, but despite its strategic position, it was never tested in action.
Across from it, Kingswear Castle, ten years the younger, is now owned by the Landmark Trust and available for holiday lets.
In summer, the little ferry that runs from the south embankment to Dartmouth Castle will reward you with splendid views of the twin castles across the estuary mouth, dramatic hills, wooded banks, calm coves and town vistas.
Coastal paths around Dartmouth and Kingswear, and country paths to villages with Dart views, present superbly scenic walks in the area. The Tourist Information Centre has an array of books, guides and leaflets.
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Discover Dartmouth
Added 2008/08/09 @ 01:06:35
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