88km Ilminster to Drewsteignton
Near Bickleigh, Devon
Ride Overview
Oh, this is a delightful day of riding on gravelly lanes so narrow that you almost have to squeeze through them! The country smells of roses, honeysuckle and deep greens. The hills roll steeply, the rivers water the meadows and great cafès, pubs, castles and cottages line the route. It is a ride through the very essence of rural England. But make no mistake, this is a lumpy day filled with short sharp hills.
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: Campsites near to Illminster (Knowle Meadows) and Fingle’s Bridge (Sweet Meadows) DISTANCE: 86km TOTAL ASCENT: 1370m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: A mainly road based day - although the very narrow and gravelly roads might challenge your notion of what is a road CAFÈS/PUBS/SHOPS; Horton Cross, Five Dials Inn, Culmstock; The Strand Stores, The Culm Valley Inn (has rooms) Crediton; Ashton’s Coffee Lounge, Fingle’s Bridge; The Fingle Bridge Inn ACCOMMODATION; Fingle’s Bridge, Sweet Meadows MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Tiverton Parkway, Crediton LINKS TO OTHER RIDES:
To return to stage 4, click here
To go to stage 6 click here
Ride Notes
In a campsite covered in wild flowers with birds singing in the trees and hedges, a sun warming up a blue sky, and fresh eggs cooking over the camping stove, it can be hard to get going on a summer’s morning! However, pulling yourself away, you ride out into a country idyll. The first hour or so is very much up hill with a little down dale, as you climb up into the Blackdown hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is the country of the Whetstone - the hard sandstone which for centuries was used for sharpening knives and scythes.
Four Lanes
For many, the hills of Blackdown and the surrounding countryside, epitomise the English Countryside, with hedgerows, copses, small farms and fields and narrow country lanes.
At Culmstock, The Strand Stores make for a superb stop off, for a late breakfast, early lunch, or just restorative coffee and a bun. There’s places to park a bike too. After which, the rural riding on deserted, narrow lanes continues for the next 10km. Cows graze, oaks harbour noisy rooks, the lanes smell sweet. And into this reverie - for that is what it is, a dream-scape of rural England - you arrive in the Culm valley. A chimney or two still pokes up above the trees, remnants of the old textile and paper making mills which were powered by the river.
Near Butterleigh
Between the two market towns of Cullompton and Crediton, things begin to become very lumpy. The lanes become increasingly narrow, so much so that you almost have to squeeze through them. Their banks are fortress high. Films of red soil and sheets of gravel cover the roads, which as you pedal further into Devon become more tracks than tarmac’d road.
Crediton is a bustling market town, well known in days gone by for its wool market. The streets are busy, meaning that after a day’s cycling on empty lanes, that you have to re-boot and learn to share the road once again. The church is magnificently large, in part to accomodate the pilgrims who flocked here to pay homage to Saint Boniface who was born in the town. The saint, known as ‘The Apostle to the Germans’ was a busy missionary in the seventh century in Frisia - a land encompassing modern day Northern Germany and the Netherlands. He was murdered there too.
Bickleigh Castle
As you ride, particularly in early summer, the hedges sing with song, the nose stings with the sharp-sweet sting of elderflowers. Honeysuckle, roses and foxgloves drape the high-lane walls/gravelled lanes/tracks - call them what you will. Cottage walls are cobbed, the roofs thatched. Bickleigh Castle, more wedding venue than family home, bears the scars of civil wars and strife. There are tours around its rooms and gardens.
Across the Exe valley
At Tedburn St. Mary, a few miles before the day’s end, you may choose to visit Castle Drogo - the last castle to be built in Britain. It’s an early twentieth century masterpiece two miles off route. The final lurch of the day is down the gravelled road of Pike’s Hill, passing a farm which sells fresh eggs. The ride ends in deep and wooded valley of the River Teign, in which after a hot and dusty day, a swim is almost obligatory. The enticingly named, ‘Sweet Meadows and Wild Woods camping’ is a place from another age - campfires, river swims, star gazing are all on the evening’s menu, as is a short walk alongside the river to Fingle’s Bridge, and its homonymous pub.
Sweet Meadow's and Wild Woods Campsite
Every route on this website has been carefully researched as well as ridden. However situations on the ground can change quickly. If you know of changes to this route, or cafes, pubs and the like which you think other cyclists need to know about, feel free to share your thoughts below.
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