17 July 2026

Distance on Coast Path: 17.5km; ascent: 346m

Total distance: 19.1km; ascent: 346m

Walking time: 4h 35′

Total time: 6h 16′

Overnight: Bus and train back home.

I’d always planned an early start for today as I’d chosen to travel back home the same day. This meant reaching Dartmouth in time to catch a bus just before 3.00pm which would get me to Totnes Station in time for the train journey home. Coupled with the forecast of another hot sunny day with little or no wind to help keep me cool I was happy to feel a slight chill still in the air as I loped down the hill back to the coast at Beesands and turned north to retrace yesterday’s walk to where the bus had dropped me in Torcross.

Torcross was still waking up, and as I expected there was nowhere to buy anything for breakfast. That meal, I reckoned, was another 5km away at the end of the long straight stretch of road which runs along a natural dyke between the shore and the freshwater lake – a nature reserve – of Slapton Ley.

A Sherman tank recovered and preserved.

Crossing the village car park I saw a strange sight – a military tank which seemed to be covered in black tar. I went to investigate. There was a memorial stone nearby whose inscription told the story. It read:

“This American Sherman tank took part in the D-day practice landings at Slapton Beach in 1944 where it was lost at sea and there remained until its recovery in 1984.

It stands as a memorial to those American lives lost during the course of the D-day practice landings at Slapton Beach in 1944. Their sacrifice was not in vain. Be they ever at peace.”

Slapton Sands road closed

Just past the car park were ‘Road Closed’ signs. Parts of the road – the A379 – were washed away in storms in January 2026 and long-term repair work had not yet started. So the only travellers on the road north from Torcross were cyclists, walkers and runners – including a young woman who had passed me in the car park and who had started running as soon as she reached the road. That’s her in the distance in the photo. It meant that the road was very quiet, and although the SWCP Guide Book recommends walking on a path between the road and the lake I soon found the soft sand too much effort and gladly switched to the tarmac where I could keep a good pace.

Motor traffic started again once I reached the junction where a minor road joined the A road, but not so much as to tempt me back onto the sandy path. So I carried on past the end of Slapton lake until I reached Strete Gate, where the A road turns away from the coast and where I was very happy to find my planned breakfast stop open – the Salcombe Dairy Beach Café. Mindful of the need to have plenty to drink and to take good rest breaks I ordered a double espresso, a can of San Pellegrino orange and a hot sausage roll, sat down on one of the café’s benches and took my time before setting off.

By now it was starting to feel hot in the full sun. There was no wind and the sea was flat calm. From Strete Gate the Path leaves the sea shore and climbs to rejoin the main road at Strete before leaving it again, negotiating a short but particularly steep dip above Landcombe Cove, and finally rejoining it to continue as far as Blackpool Sands. Here there was a car park and a café so I had another longish break drinking a can of iced coffee.

Leaving Blackpool I headed uphill alongside the road in some welcome shade. Bright blue hydrangeas were in full bloom on either side, as brightly coloured as rhododendrons. The Path continued to track the road for a few more kilometres – sometimes on the road, sometimes on a path alongside – until finally parting company at the far end of Stoke Fleming village. A minor road, a wide farm track and a bridleway then took me to the edge of Dartmouth.

For a major Devon river the Dart Estuary is surprisingly discreet. Steep cliffs on either side mean you don’t see it until you’re upon it – the view along the coast across the river mouth looks continuous. So it was not until I rounded Blackstone Point and saw the castle on the far side of the water that I knew I had almost reached the town.

I felt pleased and relieved that I’d made the day’s walk in good time. I had plenty of time to get into town and catch my bus despite taking more and longer breaks than usual, and without any hint of the problem of two days ago. A long flight of very steep stone stairs took me down through a wood, and I was thankful I didn’t have to climb anything like that again today. There was just one last thing which could go wrong!

Dartmouth Harbour

As always on my Coast Path odyssey I’d used Luggage Transfers to shift my larger bag from one overnight stop to the next. They had delivered a 100% unfailing service. But … where can they leave a bag if you’re not stopping overnight?

I’d called their office. Did they have anywhere in Dartmouth they could drop a bag? Sorry, no – but they suggested I ask the Visitor Centre. I called the Centre: a helpful woman said they might have been able to accept it but she couldn’t guarantee they would be open on that Friday afternoon as they were all volunteers and no-one had yet been rostered for that time. But maybe the Harbour Office could help – they have lockers. I called the Harbour Office. “No”, said Clare, the Office Manager, “we don’t have lockers, just somewhere people keep their lifejackets.” I explained the problem. “Well, we close at half past four, but if you’re sure you’ll be here before then and give me your name and contact details, and your bag’s clearly labelled, I think we can do it.”

And so it was that at 1.45pm I climbed the stairs to the first-floor Harbour Office, walked up to the Reception desk and announced “Hello! I’m Tony and …. that’s my bag!” as I pointed to it behind the receptionist. After a few more minutes thanking Clare and the others in the office I and my bag left to find first a cold beer (The Crab on the harbour front) and then where I should catch the bus to Totnes. An eventful few days with more lows than highs was over, and I was going home with the Salcombe to Beesands section of the Coast Path on my Unfinished Business list.

15 July 2026

Distance on Coast Path: 17.8km; ascent: 362m

Total distance: 17.8km; ascent: 362m

Walking time: 4h 41′

Total time: 7h 12′

Overnight: The Fo’c’sle B&B, Salcombe

Yesterday – Day 43 – had started well and ended badly. Today – Day 44 – started well and ended worse!

The earliest time The Sloop does breakfast is 9.00 so it was just after 10.00 that I set off. The knee that had troubled me yesterday was feeling much better this morning with the residual pain held at bay by overnight and breakfast-time paracetamol. An easy short climb took me to the low cliff path alongside Thurlestone Golf Course, then down to Thurlestone beach and South Milton Sands where an unnamed stream runs through a nature reserve before curving into the sea.

South Milton Sands

A short distance further, still on an easy path, I reached Hope Cove – first Inner Hope then Outer Hope – where I stopped for a coffee and found the Post Office and general store where I bought two fresh pains au chocolat to eat later and some Ibuprofen (better than paracetamol for joint and muscle pain, I find). From there it was only another few minutes’ walk to the headland of Bolt Tail.

Hope Cove and the headland of Bolt Tail

From Bolt Tail the coast runs south-east for 8km to its companion headland Bolt Head. The Path here is generally good with easy gradients as it undulates along Bolberry Down and Cathole Cliff before reaching the only significant descent/ascent into Soar Mill Cove where, out of care for my knee, I opted for a slightly longer but less steep permissive footpath reaching the Cove by a grassy inland path. The steep climb out of the Cove was unavoidable, but quite short.

Fancy bench on Bolberry Down.

It was a warm sunny day with the temperature in the mid-twenties, and it was around here that I realised I was longing for some shade: there had been none since leaving a little wood just outside Hope Cove. With no prospect of any to come I stopped for a rest on a bench.

Once back on my feet, whether it was the constant sun, the temperature, or maybe I hadn’t been drinking enough water, it was around this point that I got the first warning sign of a problem I have had only three times in the past twenty-five years. Each time it’s been when I’ve been tired and exhausted, so perhaps I hadn’t realised how much fitness I’d lost through inactivity over the past few months. The first signs are a tightening of my pelvic muscles and a slight tendency to stumble or trip as I walk. At its extreme I am hardly able to walk – my balance goes completely and I can hardly shuffle one foot in front of the other. The problem goes away without treatment but it takes a few hours’ rest.

I carried on cautiously, taking frequent short stops and managing to prevent the problem getting worse, and so reached Bolt Head. Between here and Salcombe there is one more down-and-up, Starehole Bay. I considered taking an inland route to avoid it, but one of the leaders of a group of teenagers from a nearby outdoor centre assured me the gradients weren’t very steep, so I stayed on the Coast Path.

Sparing the details I made it down to the bay, had a rest, then dragged myself up the other side thankful for the handrail at the section of exposed rocks at the foot of the spike of Sharp Tor. Slower now and with frequent short stops I at last reached shade and then a tarmac road leading into South Sands at the edge of Salcombe. I’d already decided I’d phone for a taxi at the first opportunity; a good thing because I could hardly stay upright on the last steep bend down to sea level.

The receptionist at the South Sands Hotel was helpful: she gave me a list of local taxi firms and said I could sit in the lobby to make calls using their wifi. After the problems I’d had the previous day trying to get a taxi the first call I made was to my B&B to warn them I might be late, and the lovely Christine immediately said she would send her husband to pick me up!

16 July 2026

It didn’t take much soul-searching overnight to realise that it would be foolish to attempt the walk I’d planned for today. It was longer than yesterday, the forecast was similar with little or no prospect of shade, and crucially there is only one place along the whole route (East Prawle) where a public road comes anywhere near the coast. There are no bus services. And my overnight stop was in a tent on a campsite with no facilities apart from the usual shower and toilet block. If anything were to go wrong I would be in serious trouble!

So I had a bus day instead. First from Salcombe to Kingsbridge, where I had a sandwich for lunch sitting by the tidal creek in the town, then to Torcross and finally a short walk over the hill to Beesands. Here I had an early evening beer at The Cricket Inn and a crab sandwich at the  Britannia By The Beach beach café before walking up the hill to the campsite and reaching my (expensive) furnished bell tent just before 7pm.

Despite the rather unfamiliar experience I had a fair night’s sleep until I was woken at 5.30 by pigeons in the nearby hedge. I was on my way by 7.30.

Beesands Bell Tent

Preamble:  getting there – 13 July 2026

Overnight: Worswell Barton Farm B&B, Noss Mayo (P & J Rogers)

Three buses a day run from Plymouth to Noss Mayo. I was due to arrive at Plymouth Station at 1613, in plenty of time to get to Royal Parade in the city centre to catch the last bus at 1740. This would get me to Noss Mayo at 1833, when I would have a meal in one of the two pubs in the village before walking with my bags the mile or so up the hill to the farm where I was staying the night. But best-laid plans …

The train was held up by a broken-down train ahead of it and eventually reached Plymouth at 1743, not even worth trying the dash into the centre for the bus. Demand for taxis was high but I eventually got a ride with a friendly young driver who was quickly out of his comfort zone as we worked our way through a maze of ever-narrowing lanes towards the farm. My plan now was to drop my bags at the farm, then get the taxi to drop me in the village where I’d eat before walking back. This worked out well and I had a pleasant meal at The Ship. The other Noss Mayo pub, The Crown, was closed on Mondays. The Ship was moderately busy for a Monday with groups sitting outside overlooking the water and enjoying the warm evening.

The light was beginning to fade as I walked up the steep first part of the path back to the farm, but as I came over the hill crest I was rewarded with a splendid sunset view back along the coast, with the dot of the chapel on Rame Head visible in the far distance.

14 July 2026

Distance on Coast Path: 22.5km (to Bigbury-on-Sea); ascent: 492m

Total distance: 22.8km; ascent: 492m

Walking time: 5h 26′

Total time: 9h 09′

Overnight: The Sloop Inn, Bantham

Here is a summary of my first objective of the day.

Erme crossing for Dummies

Phil and Jane run Worswell Barton Farm outside Noss Mayo, and couldn’t have been more welcoming or helpful. They do breakfast from 7 o’clock so any B&B guests like me who need an early start to get to the River Erme crossing for low tide can do so.

The Erme is one of the main rivers which rise on Dartmoor and flow south to reach the sea in a broad estuary. Most of these estuaries either have regular, seasonal or occasional ferries, or must be walked or driven around. The Erme has no ferry but is known to be wadeable within an hour either side of low tide, although walkers are warned the crossing may not be safe after heavy rain, storms or exceptional tides. Luckily none of those applied today. Low tide would be at around 12.00, so I needed to be at the crossing between 11.00am and 1.00pm.

I’d been very nervous about this first day: I was unfit; it was further than I’d walked for many months and with much more ascent, and as well as needing to get to the estuary in time I then had to finish the rest of the walk by 4.00pm to get the last ferry across the River Avon estuary to my overnight stay in Bantham.

Phil and Jane keep the local tide tables in their living room and gave my plan to leave at 7.45 their approval. “It takes three and a half hours to the crossing”, said Phil, “so you should be fine.” I was mentally allowing four hours, but that would be OK. They directed me across the field outside their farmhouse: “Make downhill to the bottom corner. You’ll see a gate which opens straight onto the Coast Path. This part is an old carriage drive so it’s pretty flat for the first few miles and you can make good time while you can.” I set off trying to look my most confident, but still anxious inside.

The Rogers were right about the first part of the morning. The old carriage road was a wide track, sometimes gravel, sometimes grassy, with easy gentle gradients and occasional cows. It was sunny and getting warm as the morning went by, with a strong easterly blowing in my face to cool me, and I made good time as far as Stoke, some seven kilometres into the walk.

After Stoke the Path became a narrow and twisting single track for a while before opening out again. A kilometre further a very steep descent off Beacon Hill needed care; the climb the other side of the dip was not quite as steep.

It was now 10 o’clock and although I had made good time I still had the niggling anxiety about the day’s timing so I decided to take a short-cut follow a High Level Variant by walking on the nearby road as far as Mothecombe village above the Erme estuary. This brought me to the crossing point around 1120. I would have crossed straight away but I was confused by the tide time displayed on the official information board: it gave low tide as closer to 2.00pm than 12.00. If this was right I needed to wait over an hour before crossing. Although there were a few people on the sands each side of the estuary there was no-one who looked as if they were about to cross. I dithered for a while, then decided to go with my original plan, remembering the wise words of the Rogers. “If the tide’s going out but you’re not sure about crossing you can always start, but check the depth as you go and if it looks too deep, go back and wait.”

View across the estuary from the Mothecombe side, looking towards Wonwell.

I don’t like crossing rivers barefoot: you never know what sharp objects might have washed up on the river bed. So I went onto the beach, took off my boots, looped the laces through the top of my rucksack and tied them together, put my socks in the rucksack pocket, set up my walking poles to help with balance, put on the faux-neoprene AquaShoes I’d bought a few weeks ago for £4.99 from Lidl, rolled my trousers up above my knees and set off over the sand towards the slip road on the far side.

The actual crossing was probably not much more than fifty or sixty metres. The water was clear and flowing steadily but not strongly; I could step and shuffle across without any problems. I even stopped mid-stream to take photos, though I was very cautious about not dropping my phone or a walking pole. At its deepest the water didn’t quite come up to my knees.

Looking back from midstream

Midstream

The far side (Wonwell beach) from midstream

At the far side I dried my feet, put my boots back on and left the AquaShoes by the side of the slipway for anyone to help themselves. I was glad to have done the crossing without mishap, and I was half an hour ahead of the time I’d set myself to reach the Avon ferry by 4.00pm so all was good as I set off for the second stage of the day. Until …

Until my right knee started hurting when I went downhill. I had to step carefully and try not to bend it. Then it started hurting going uphill too. The half hour I had in hand quickly evaporated and I realised I wouldn’t reach the ferry in time. Never mind, I’d just have to get a taxi. I’d phone from Bigbury-on-Sea, the nearest place to the ferry crossing.

Nemesis wasn’t going to let me off that easily. Sparing you the full story, dear Reader, Bigbury-on-Sea isn’t very Big. A phone signal was hard to find. I threw myself on the mercy of the nice people at the Henley Hotel and sat in their lounge while I phoned seven different taxi services, none of which could or would take me on the thirty minute drive around the estuary. “You should have booked yesterday”, two of them said. The Henley Hotel couldn’t offer me a bed or a meal, and anyway my bag was at The Sloop in Bantham, across the river. I finally called back to the lovely Suzi, aka Merlin Taxis, who on my first call had said she couldn’t collect me before 8.00, who now said she could take me if I didn’t mind waiting. She’d definitely pick me up before 9.00.

And so I finally reached my overnight stop at 9.15. Tired, exhausted, and with a sore knee I went straight to my room and collapsed onto the bed.

22 April 2026

Distance on Coast Path: 11.8km; ascent: 194m

Total distance: 14.1km; ascent: 285m

Walking time: 3h 30′

Total time: 4h 16′

Overnight: Self-catering, Plymouth

I was the only passenger on the 9.15 ferry from the Barbican to Mount Batten. It was another clear but windy day which turned warm later. While we were waiting to set off the Ferrymaster – a young man in his early twenties – commented on the small crowd of young people gathered on the quayside: he thought they must be a group of French school pupils. “They come over on school trips on Brittany Ferries, get a coach here from the terminal and hang around, then get the boat back to the terminal. We never did that sort of thing at my school”, he said regretfully. I asked what he was doing apart from driving the ferry: he said he was doing a marine engine maintenance course at college. I wished him luck.

Getting closer, but still a way to go!

From the jetty at the other side I walked again the short distance to Mount Batten Point then set off along the next section of the Coast Path. After a short distance close to the shore the path rises to an open green sloping area dotted with park benches. This is Jenny Cliff, the last entry in the Plymouth Waterfront Walk guide book, because at the far side is the Plymouth City boundary, marked by the “Plymouth Doormat”, a wide concrete slab set in the ground across the path. It carries a message facing anyone approaching from outside the city — “Welcome to Plymouth. Please wipe your feet”.

Emerging from woodland the path follows the cliff to pass below Staddon Fort, a WW1 and WW2 military base now decommissioned and privately owned. Then a high security fence and notices declaring ‘No Public Access’ and warnings against touching any unexploded objects appear as you approach Staddon Point and Fort Bovisand. This Fort is still actively used by the military. I stopped at a bridge across what was clearly a man-made cutting about 5 metres wide which ran in a straight line up the sloping cliff side: I could just make out what I thought were low windows in an ivy-covered wall at the top. Once again a chatty dog-walker told me more about it. It was, he said, a firing range; what I thought were windows at the top were actually slits for rifles. He told me the whole cliff area around the Fort is used by Special Forces for training in techniques like cliff assaults by stealth. The tattoos on his arms made me inclined to believe him.

Below, the harbour and buildings of Fort Bovisand were clearly still in active use, though quiet today with only a lorry moving slowly on a dirt road.

Fort Bovisand

Before Bovisand Beach the Cliff Edge Café came as a welcome chance for a break and an early coffee. There were several other customers sitting outside – the café is close to a car park at the end of a road. It had a good feel to it – friendly service and several welcoming signs.

Cliff Edge Café, Bovisand

The Path dropped down to the beach and up the other side to bring me to Bovisand Holiday Park on what I decided must be a private road. The Holiday Park seemed a step up from the familiar rows of static caravans – landscaped enough to hide much of the site, and after I passed through the second automatic road barrier a row of not unattractive single-storey holiday bungalows ran down towards the coast. Signs hinted that those in the know called the site “Bovi”.

Bovisand holiday chalets

From there onwards the walk was much of the same – low cliffs, coves, bays, headlands – all very pleasant on a day that was warm and clear, if still quite windy. I rounded Wembury Point and soon reached the point where the road from Wembury village reaches the coast. The village itself was out of sight; it is however the nearest village to the ferry across the River Yealm which was my objective for the day. A short climb back onto the cliffs was followed by a level and recently-surfaced path which I followed for about two kilometres to a path junction where I took a rough driveable track which went steeply down to a dead end at a small jetty on the Yealm estuary.

The ferry here – which I was not planning to take – is one which is summoned by setting a big sign at the jetty. It operates a triangular route linking this point (and thus Wembury village) with the villages of Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo, both on the other side of the Yealm but in turn separated from each other on the northern and southern sides of a tributary creek. The Coast Path starts again at Noss Mayo, which will be my starting point on my next visit.

I turned back up the steep track to the path junction, then took footpaths leading to the edge of Wembury village where I could wait for the bus back to Plymouth.

21 April 2026

Distance on Coast Path: 14.2km; ascent: 104m

Total distance: 17.6km; ascent: 104m

Walking time: 4h 03′

Total time: 5h 12′

Overnight: Self-catering, Plymouth

It seemed to me that the section of the Coast Path which twists its way along the waterfront through urban Plymouth deserved to be treated differently, so I organised a short visit to complete this and the next section over a couple of days. Thus I set off from my one-room self-catering apartment near Plymouth Hoe carrying a very light rucksack and wearing trainers instead of boots, to walk to the slip where the ferry from Cremyll had dropped me back in October last year.

A little over five hours later, almost at my walk’s end at Mount Batten, my head was full of the contrasts I’d seen, my phone’s photo gallery showing a screenful of pictures I’d taken.

When I finally sat down to write an account of the day I didn’t know how best to do it. To describe everything would need a whole booklet. In fact someone has done just that, and I recommend that anyone who wants to follow the Coast Path through Plymouth should visit the Tourist Office at Sutton Harbour (near the Mayflower Steps) and pick up a free copy of ‘Plymouth’s Waterfront Walkway’, a thirty-page booklet with detailed information on the many interesting things along the way. You can also download it from the link above, but it’s good to have the paper version with you as you go. I wish I’d had it with me on my own walk, but I only found it afterwards! So what follows is a string of impressions in truncated note form of what I came across on the way.

Admiral’s Hard. That’s what the slipway for the ferry is called. Down Cremyll Street – glimpses of the water – a relic of old machinery. Ducking down a side entrance for a view of Royal William Yard. Past a pub called “The V O T” which turns out to be “The Victualling Office Tavern”, a clue to what’s to come. Decrepit garages and storerooms fronting directly onto the street. The dilapidated and faded rear entrance to the Durnford Hotel – is it still operating?

Old and new

Royal William Yard

Through the entrance gate to Royal William Yard. This place is huge! I hadn’t imagined it like this. Solid stone buildings, tall chimneys, fading lettering above doorways. “Bakery”. “Cooperage”. This is how the Royal Navy was kept supplied with food and drink (‘victualled’) in Victorian times. A massive operation. Some buildings converted to fashionable waterside apartments. Evidence of attempts to attract commercial trade – Nando’s, Wagamama – but I’m not convinced.

Cooperage

By a door under an archway, a wooden post with a yellow top and an SWCP waycorn. The headquarters of the SWCP Association. They seem surprised when I walk in to say ‘Hello’. They’ve only just moved in so haven’t got used to drop-in visitors yet. I leave the Yard by the four flights of new stairs cantilevered onto the Yard’s defensive wall.

Through a small park and into Durnford Street which has fine Victorian houses painted in Wedgwood colours, and quotations from Arthur Conan Doyle cast in iron and set into the pavement. At the far end the road is closed even to walkers. The diversion takes me down Stonehouse Street, all single-storey sheds: tool hire, car body shops, car spares, tyres new and part-worn, MoT While-U-Wait, garage door installation. Incongruously, Devon Hair & Beauty Supplies.

Back on the official route looking down at the Brittany Ferries terminal then following the promenades and road beneath West Hoe and The Hoe itself, past the closed and deserted art deco Tinside Lido and the Royal Citadel for a coffee stop close to the Mount Batten ferry pier.

The Barbican and Sutton Harbour, Plymouth’s original harbour. American tourists disappointed with the very low-key Mayflower Steps – pavement plaque, small arch, two flagpoles with Union and US flags.

By Sutton Harbour

Over Sutton Harbour’s lock gates to the National Marine Aquarium. Built in the late 1990s to an unremarkable design on a rather cramped site. Paid entry, so I just look round the shop and find only tourist tat.

A transition point. No more tourists and coach parties but a succession of once-separate localities. Low functional buildings and houses from Victorian times and earlier mixed with modern heavy industry. Breakwater Hill – an old road now blocked to traffic leads from Coxside to Cattedown, emerging at a huge waste processing plant served by big tipper lorries. The road is covered in dust, the pavement blocked or non-existent. A very large ship is being loaded with scrap. Bricked up old warehouses and the backs of newer corrugated buildings. At the end, The Passage House pub looks out of place and not very inviting, though it is open. More car workshops. “Quality Used Cars”.

Coast Path at T R 2

A little further, a modern building which looks like the headquarters of a medium-sized accountancy firm has “T R 2” in solid stone sculpted outside. I later learn it’s the Production and Learning Centre of Plymouth’s Theatre Royal. It’s next to a cement works and opposite the storage tanks of a bulk fuel depot. Past a large scrap metal dealers – “Trade and Public Welcome”, “Cars Motorbikes Small Vans” – I follow a pavement alongside a busy road to traffic lights at the junction with the A379. Turning right the Laira Bridge takes me across the River Plym, here known as Cattewater. Over the bridge another vast shed: “Bridgestone Exhausts Tyres Batteries”.

Crossing the River Plym (Cattewater)

Still on the main road, another dusty and forlorn pub, The Morley Arms. A petrol station. A modern glass-fronted showroom “Plymouth Marine” sells shiny expensive-looking jet-skis and outboard motors. On the other side of the road is a retail park, “Sugar Mill”. I’m now in Oreston, the next old locality. Still on the main road a long breeze-block wall about head-height and with rough, stained grey rendering separates the road from a straight creek with moored boats – Pomphlett Lake. A series of poems with the words cut out of iron strips is fixed to the wall: one laments the wall separating it and the reader from the water beyond.

Turning right across the end of the creek and passing a stone rhinoceros standing in long grass by the side of the path, I turn right again to follow the opposite side of the creek. I can see now that as well as the moored boats Pomphlett Lake is also a boat graveyard. The derelict hulks are not the last ones I’ll see on this visit.

Derelict Hulk

I follow the Coast Path through Oreston, Hooe and Turnchapel, now merged together but each still separately identifiable with its old fishermans’ cottages and one or more pubs. I feel I’m following half-forgotten paths which once ran along quaysides but are now cut off from the water by security fencing and razor wire to protect the expensive yachts in the yards behind. There’s new building too, almost exclusively modern waterside apartments, not ugly or oppressive, just bland: the kind you would see in stock photos in Getty Images.

Finally I approach Mount Batten peninsula. There’s a lot of construction going on here and it’s not obvious where the Path goes. I adopt my most confident demeanour and walk through the expensive boatyards. One, Plymouth Yacht Haven, is an aircraft hangar-sized shed with an open front revealing several large and expensive yachts jacked up undercover like a millionaire’s version of a Kwik-Fit tyre and brake shop.

The jetty for the ferry back to Sutton Harbour is fenced off but the temporary alternative is only another 100 metres along the peninsula. I have time in hand so I walk past the Hotel Mountbatten to the end, then along the wide breakwater which runs about 300 metres out to a small observation tower. The strong wind which has been blowing all day carries me along but I have to fight it on the way back.*

The ferry journey back to Sutton Harbour and The Barbican takes about ten minutes. The small boat weaves a course through moored boats of all types and sizes and past a commercial bunkerage depot which displays the price of marine diesel in the same way as your local petrol station advertises unleaded petrol.

In conclusion, an interesting day and very different from any other day on the Coast Path, varying from the historic to the derelict via the industrial. Notably there has been nothing newly built of any interest. The centre of Plymouth is undergoing a major reconfiguration and redevelopment but none of that reaches the waterfront.

* Mount Batten has an interesting history including its time as RAF Mount Batten and its association with T.E.Lawrence (‘of Arabia’). The ‘Plymouth’s Waterfront Walkway’ booklet has a section about it, and Wikipedia has an article with links to more details.

While Pears’ ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’ (published 1997) tells its story through the voices of four people and is set in one time period, ‘The Dream of Scipio’ (published 2002) and his ‘Stone’s Fall’ (published 2009) combine multiple protagonists over different time periods.

All three periods in ‘Scipio’ are set mainly in Provence, in and around the towns of Vaison and Avignon. In the 5th century the Roman Empire was coming to an end, its power and influence waning rapidly without the resources to maintain control over its territories. The Christian Church was building its own power.

In the 14th century, Avignon was the seat of the Catholic Pope Clement VI. Bishops and cardinals contended for personal power; heresies challenged the Church’s teachings.

The 20th century saw the rise of fascism, the outbreak of war and the German occupation.

These periods are linked in the book by three characters, each with an interest in Cicero’s ‘Somnium Scipionis’ (‘Dream of Scipio’). In the 5th century Manlius, a Roman nobleman who is appointed Bishop of Vaison, writes a commentary on Cicero’s text. In 14th century Avignon a young scholar, Olivier de Noyen, is obsessed by Manlius’s work and other old manuscripts, and in the 20th century a student, Julien Barneuve, is in turn researching the life of the 14th century scholar.

Other threads link the three periods. In the Roman period Sophia, a female philosopher originally from Alexandria, has a strong influence on Manlius. Her Neo-Platonic ideas challenge the conventional teachings of the early Christian church. By the middle ages she has become Saint Sophia with a chapel outside Vaison dedicated to her. Olivier de Noyen knows the chapel well: a close friend paints a fresco in the chapel. Olivier himself is obsessed with Rebecca, the servant of Gersonides, a Jewish Neo-Platonist who challenges his thinking. Julien Barneuve has an enduring relationship with a strong and independent Jewish female artist (painter) who similarly challenges his view of the world and who for a time lives as a semi-recluse in St Sophia’s chapel.

And in each period the characters’ world faces a challenge – attacks on the rule of Rome by the Burgundians and the Goths; the Black Death; the rise of Fascism, the second world war and the German occupation of France.

Several of the characters are genuinely historic: the Jewish philosopher Gersonides, Pope Clement VI and the Burgundian King Gundobad for example. Others have close historical parallels – Pears’ Manlius is a close match to the 5th century Neo-Platonist Macrobius. The Wikipedia article about the book has more information on this aspect.

What of the book itself? For me it was a tough one to read, at least to start with. The first and easily the longest of its three parts I found particularly dense. Pears skips rapidly from one period to another in a succession of short episodes, demanding a lot from the reader to follow each thread and understand what’s going on. By half-way through (and still in Part 1) I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish. But when I finally reached Part 2 the episodes lengthened, the pace quickened: it became clear that there was a story to be told about each of the characters. And in Part 3 events in each period come to a climax. Some of the action is violent.

So this is a book that is gruelling, fascinating and astonishing. You could say it’s about Neo-Platonism and the battle of ideas. It’s about antisemitism. It’s about what it means to be a ‘civilised society’. But I ultimately see it as about power; how it is sought and wielded by the powerful and how it affects those who suffer under it. It implies that the actions of individuals, sometimes powerful, sometimes close to power but not themselves powerful, can lead to events that determine the course of history.

In summary, if you decide to read the book be prepared to settle in for the long haul. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it at the time but I felt it was a challenge, and in retrospect I’m glad to have read it. It’s an impressive achievement by the author, and I’ve learned some history along the way.

Well, it finally arrived – the third and final volume of the ‘Book of Dust’ trilogy. Parts 1 and 2 are reviewed here. I was critical of the third book of the ‘Dark Materials’ trilogy (review here): would Pullman pull it off this time, I wondered? Well …

Story-telling is an important part of Lyra’s character and a pervasive theme in both series, so I assume it’s important to Pullman himself too. And like ‘Dark Materials’, this is a good story. There’s plenty of intrigue, action, fantastic creatures old and new (notably gryphons), a return of the witches, scheming, friendship and betrayal played out by some familiar and some new characters.

But I feel that if ‘The Rose Field’ and its two precursors were ever to be studied as part of an English Literature syllabus there would be many faults found. Some episodes covered in detail disappear like water in the sand and are never followed up; new characters enter the narrative, are described in detail and then dropped; some seemingly important concepts (‘good numbers’ and the disembodied voices who first mention them, for example) are referred to and discussed but never appear again. Of course it’s a story, a fantasy, and not everything has to be explained or resolved; after all, that is part of the world in which it is set. Mysteries are allowed! But I can’t help thinking that Pullman has indulged himself by bringing in some ideas that he finds intriguing, like quantum mechanics, number theory, or the strange ‘wandering lake’ of Lop Nor (a real thing), purely because he wants to write about them. Consequently the story sometimes loses focus, leaving the reader thinking “What was that all about?”, or “Why did we have all that stuff earlier?”

But despite all that, and repeating my views on ‘Dark Materials’, I think most readers will be carried along by the pace and excitement and not worry too much about these problems. It is after all a cracking good tale!

Isherwood’s story set in Berlin at the end of the Weimar Republic is a fictitious account drawing on his own time there and featuring characters based on real people. It is entertaining and amusing, but don’t expect to be shocked either by the decadent society he describes or the violent upsurge of the Nazis. Isherwood treats these matters lightly to make a palatable story – a choice he later renounced:

What repels me now about Mr Norris is its heartlessness. It is a heartless fairy-story about a real city in which human beings were suffering the miseries of political violence and near-starvation. The “wickedness” of Berlin’s night-life was of the most pitiful kind; the kisses and embraces, as always, had price-tags attached to them, but here the prices were drastically reduced in the cut-throat competition of an over-crowded market. … As for the “monsters”, they were quite ordinary human beings prosaically engaged in getting their living through illegal methods. The only genuine monster was the young foreigner who passed gaily through these scenes of desolation, misinterpreting them to suit his childish fantasy.

Source: Wikipedia, downloaded 17/02/2026; quoted from Fryer, Jonathan (1977); “Isherwood: A Biography” pp 146-7; Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company; ISBN 0-385-12608-5

Having admired and enjoyed Pears’ ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost‘ and ‘Stone’s Fall‘ I came across ‘The Portrait’ by chance when I was looking for his ‘The Dream of Scipio’ in my local library catalogue. But while ‘Fingerpost’ and ‘Stone’ are both multi-layered historical mysteries, ‘Portrait’ is something very different: a continuous, sustained, first-person monologue like nothing else I can remember reading. There are no chapters, just section breaks.

The setting is an artist talking to his sitter – someone he has known well in the past but not been in touch with for some time. The publisher’s blurbs on the cover give away that there’s a crime involved, but even well over halfway through the book I had no idea where the story was going. From the start there is a slowly growing sense of menace as events in the past begin to coalesce into a narrative which comes to a dramatic head in the final few pages of the book.

A classic I should have read long ago. It bounces up and down along the surface – entertaining, amusing. Then with the introduction of Bernhard Landauer you find you’re slithering and bumping down the crumbling cliff until you end up in a bruised heap at the bottom.