NCN 3 Barnstaple - Taunton
From Ridge Road across to Exmoor
Ride overview
There’s a ‘beast’ roaming around Exmoor, warned a neighbouring diner when she heard that I was due to cycle across Exmoor the next day. ‘You’d better watch out!’ she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Despite intensive searching (my internet ‘research’ tells me) it has never been found so you can proceed up towards Exmoor, alert but fearless. Once upon the moor, you’ll find it a wild and lonesome place, where the wind rules and Atlantic weather fronts rip in from the sea. Bracken, gorse, Bronze-age tumuli, semi-wild horses and scattered pieces of granite are what you going to see. And sky. Lots of it. The descent off the moor into more hospitable lands is brake-squeallingly thrilling, but be aware of the gravel and mud which lurks in dips and corners. Arriving in a deep, wooded valley, you cross the fast flowing river Barle and enter Dulverton, a pretty and much frequented town. From here, the narrow lanes link orchards, rich grazing lands, thatched cottages and a few grand manors before arriving in Tiverton. Connecting Tiverton with the day’s end in Taunton is the Grand Western Canal alongside which you ride on a well laid tow path. After all the hills and dales, it is a bit of a relief to have a stretch of flat riding. Taunton, an unremarkable and busy town is a convenient place to end the day, since there is a shortage of options in the countryside around it.
Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: Barnstaple/Taunton DISTANCE: 117km TOTAL ASCENT: 1484m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: Other than sections on the Taunton Canal’s tow path, which is firm and well surfaced, the route is entirely on small, high-hedged country lanes RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS; CAMPING: ACCOMMODATION: FERRIES; NEARBY MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Barnstaple, Tiverton Parkway, Taunton LINKS TO OTHER RIDES: The West Country Way
*WMWG only list places for food, drink and beds which have met our strict quality standards. They will promote local growers, are independent who set high standards, but who are not necessarily the cheapest place in town.
Ride notes
Fortify yourself well before setting off, as the road rises immediately upon leaving Barnstaple on narrow, muddy lanes to Exmoor and there’s no re-fuel opportunity until Dulverton some 50km across the moor. It’s a rude way to begin the day for the uphill is stiff and long. You ride through a canyon of high banks and tall hedges. The full panoply of roadside nature is enjoyed as you quietly grind your way up the hills; and endless array of greenery, berries, floral displays, insects It’s not until you top out onto the moor that the views open up again and you become once more, reacquainted with the wind and sky.
Exmoor
Exmoor is sometimes overlooked in favour of its bigger neighbour, Dartmoor. Upon entering the National Park, the countryside is still lush and green, but as you climb to the 400m mark, trees become stunted and sculpted, hedgerows disappear and sheep have their wool ruffled by Atlantic gales. In their seasons, sprays of sweet gorse or carpets of purple heather paint the ground. The moor, a former Royal Hunting Park, can be a wild and lonesome place and on stormy days, you may even come across the ‘beast of Exmoor’, which is more likely to be a beast of wind rather than of the mammalian kind. First reported in the 1970s, the ‘beast’ became notorious in 1983, when a farmer claimed that over 100 of his sheep had been killed, all of them by ‘violent throat injuries’. Royal Marines were deployed but the beast was not seen. It could have been a cougar, released from a private collection after a law was passed in 1976 making it illegal for them to be kept in captivity outside a zoo, or since there are still reported sightings, it might still be on the moor.
Dulverton
Providing you’ve escaped the cat, the wild and narrow road will take you swooping down on characterful and twisty lanes, to Dulverton. Close your eyes to the cars parked around the market square and you might feel that the road has taken you back in time as well as off the moor. Tea is served in the many tea shops in dainty china cups (served with a saucer). Independent shops sell local products, and local people seem to stop regularly mid-pavement to chat to one another.
There’s a choice of route out of town both signed NCN 3, the road (not too busy) and a track (quite muddy), and both meet up a mile or so out of town. Outside the village of Bampton there’s another 8% climb, but generally you cruise along through winding valleys surrounded by rich pasture and fields that look as if they have been purposely touched up in photoshop to look good for the tourist brochures. Everything is very neat; houses, gardens, even the cows look groomed. Lanes are satisfyingly narrow and often muddy, and there’s a rich smell of leaves, grass, milk and stone, the scent of England’s shires.
After all the stone country houses, the wonky-walled cottages, the magnificent farms with their ordered sheds which you’ve been passing for mile after mile, you might expect Tiverton to be full of elegant buildings, built from the profits of the town’s former wool and weaving industry. However, the town is that ‘other England’; one of neglect and where any hint of civic pride is absent. It is a town of chain stores, charity shops, poor architecture. On-line reviews of the town, written by Tivertonians are very damning.
The Grand Western Canal which links Tiverton with Taunton was built in 1796, with a view to connecting the Bristol Channel with the English Channel, so by-passing the hazardous Land’s End sea route. However it was never completed as the coming of the railway saw to its demise as a commercial enterprise. Trains still hurtle past with mocking speed. The riding alternates between a canal tow-path and country lanes and is always flat and undemanding. Hedgerows are full of gossipy sparrows, fluttering great tits and charms of glamorous goldfinches. Cows quietly chew their cud in hedge-bordered fields, dragon flies (who can accelerate faster than a fighter jet) dart around the buttercups, water lilies and bullrushes on the waters’ edge.
After 105km, the route delivers you to Taunton. The on-line search for highlights of the town extol the virtues of the surrounding countryside and they neatly side-step the less than average town with its traffic-clogged streets. The usual chains of hotels and restaurants offer places to eat, drink and sleep.
All the details given on this route are given in good faith. However, situations on the ground can change, so if you know of any access issues, closures, or have any thoughts and feedback on the route, please include them in the comments section below.
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