Walk: Lydford Gorge

IF you have visitors over the coming summer months, they will probably want to visit Lydford Gorge, one of the most popular beauty spots in Devon. But how many people actually see a fraction of the natural wealth it has to offer? TONY HILLS invites you to look a little closer - and see a whole lot more.

DERTMOOR, as Dartmoor used to be called, is nothing if not full of surprises. One of these is in the woods, in the disused mines. Half the world’s arsenic once came from Devon mines and the Victorians laced their soft drinks with it. It’s a deadly poison, of course, but it does give you a tanned and healthy look... at first.

Several of the woods described in my book have vertical mineshafts, which could be quite dangerous, if they were not fenced off. But there are also horizontal mineshafts, also disused - except for colonies of bats that find a safe sanctuary there.

In Lydford Gorge, for example, you will find the mine entrances barred off, to stop people wandering in and disturbing the bats - or injuring themselves in the pitch dark. Some of these galleries only go in a few yards into the rock before it was discovered there wasn’t enough copper or tin to make it worth mining.

Lydford Gorge is probably Devon’s best-known beauty spot, and although most of it involves you in a strenuous walk, there is a long, level area - where the railway used to run - which is also suitable for wheelchairs. To find it, park at the opposite end to the National Trust’s main office.

Here you will find the White Lady waterfall gushing down about a hundred feet. At the other end, you will find a raging cauldron of water known as the Devil’s Cauldron - where else in England would you find such a combination? It’s the only wood in my book where you have to pay, but it is worth the fee.

The gorge itself was carved out by water erosion over many millions of years, and the process is, of course, still going on. The water at the bottom of the gorge is known as the Lyd and if you read the useful noticeboards you’ll discover that it once ‘captured’ another river, flowing nearby, by wearing away the banks.

Although the deafening roar of the swirling water at the Devil’s Cauldron end is dramatic in its gloom, the waterfall end is far more lightly wooded, so this tends to be the better place to see birds, butterflies, brown trout and dragonflies.

There are many large boulders lying exposed in the flowing water and these are beautifully mossy - and damp enough to establish flowering plants like the pretty pink purslane. Where the fast-flowing water produces white spray around these mini mid-stream rock gardens, the effect can be stunning.

Such woodland is ideal for coming face-to-face with nature. You may find a bird practically singing in your ear, or come across plants growing in clefts at eye level.

Take a pair of binoculars with you and another vista of nature is opened up to you - the more elusive species of treecreepers, for example, and some of the warblers. And binoculars are useful when you come across an owl or hawk resting high in a tree.

Some of the woods have very wet areas - sometimes referred to as ‘flushes’ - rather like the peaty bogs out on the moors. You don’t need wellingtons at Lydford (unless you are really adventurous), but comfortable boots are a blessing when the going gets rough.

Lydford is about a mile or so in length, and the full circuit involves an up-and-down ramble of about three miles. It’s slippery in places (the Trust have provided a handrail for those who find the going a little tricky), partly because of all the damp, but also due to the rock type - there’s little or no granite here on Dartmoor’s edges, but there’s plenty of shale and slate, and a little limestone.

If woods are to be kept attractive, certain maintenance is needed to encourage threatened wildlife, so you may see patches of bracken being heavily rolled - an attempt to crush it out of existence, where it shades out the heather. This is done in Hembury Woods, for example, where the National trust staff also cut the gorse to keep it low, which encourages birds like linnets to breed - straggly eight or 10 feet high gorse loses its attraction to wildlife.

And keep your eyes peeled for other helping hands to wildlife. Special boxes mounted high up are summer resting places for bats; placed low down, a metre or so above the ground, they encourage another species that needs all the help it can get - the dormouse.

Measures like this do have their rewards even if, as happens occasionally, a nest box intended for some declining species is taken over by something quite different. I’ve seen wasps, for example, build their nest in such a box. It’s all very well making the diameter of the entrance hole just wide enough for members of the tit family, say, but how do you thwart the insects?
Perhaps the answer is that one shouldn’t, since all insects are a vital part of the food chain.

Don’t expect to see too many showy flowers in the woods. Not enough light for that. But, on the other hand, there will be a wealth of what damp Devon is famous for - lichens, mosses and ferns. There is no better place in England for these ‘primitive plants’ as they are called. ‘Primitive’ because they evolved millions of years before any flowering plants emerged - in fact, some of them, especially the lichens, were among the very first plants to appear on our planet.
Nothing else could survive the hostile climatic conditions of those days and some of them still suggest the jungle, as they hang down like grey beards from tree or scrub branches.

Some of these primitives can look distinctly odd, and one has a name that reflects the oddness - the string-of-sausages lichen is so called because its older stems get fat and elongated.

But go and explore for yourself. Apart from all the healthy fresh air, it is always nice to discover things you didn’t know about, or the books failed to mention. And don’t forget your camera.



Tony Hills is a Devon-based writer and photographer. His latest book, A Dartmoor Naturalist - Woodlands, costs £3.95 from local bookshops or from Orchard Publications (tel: 01626 852714).