Devon and Dartmoor wild swimming

Following Tarka the Otter: river swimming North Devon

Tarka the Otter, one of Britain’s best-loved nature stories, is set along the north Devon rivers of the Torridge and Taw. I followed the rivers, from highland pools to wooded river valleys, swimming in Tarka’s paw-steps.

High on north Dartmoor, the headwaters of the Torridge and the Taw provide an excellent vantage point to survey ‘Tarka Country’. Here, on the East Okement, an important tributary of the Torridge, the army blew out a small but beautiful pool at Cullever Steps, just below Scarey Tor, as a place for servicemen to cool off during hot summers. It can still be reached via the decaying network of moorland military roads. As you bathe here, among the grazing wild ponies, Devonshire’s rolling countryside unfolds like a soft counterpane below, with the steep wooded river valleys of the Torridge and the broader, gentler reaches of the Taw just discernible to the north.

At Halsdon Nature Reserve, ten miles away on the Torridge, the otter population is almost back to its pre-1950 levels. Historically, Devon has been an international stronghold for otters, but in the 1950s and ’60s their numbers crashed as industry and farming intensified. Watercourses became contaminated with chemicals and farm runoff. By the late 1960s, the local otters were almost extinct. A massive clean-up over the last thirty years has had a major impact on the health of all British rivers.

Now, at Halsdon, you’ll see white-legged damselflies, kingfishers, sand martins, herons, dippers, and grey wagtails. There are even freshwater pearl mussels.

Best wild swim spots North Devon

Halsdon won’t welcome you to swim, as it disturbs the wildlife, but downstream, near Little Torrington, you can wade across the river at the old ford near Underclieve. This is a remote spot where the river runs wide, fast, and shallow under a tunnel of tall trees.

Great Torrington Common, below Great Torrington town, is an accessible stretch of fast-flowing, shady river with some deeper holes. It was here that Tarka learned to swim, to play, and to hunt, and he also first encountered the poachers with their trap lights like ‘little moons which he could touch and bite’.

Seven miles to the east, the Taw also rises below Dartmoor, but is a very different kind of river, running through flatter, more open countryside. Behind the remote Chapelton Station on the Barnstaple line, you’ll find a meadow and footbridge with good access to the river from open fields. The river is wide, flowing across smooth gravels with a perfect current against which you can swim, but fishing takes precedence here so walk upstream to Umberleigh, or down to Bishop’s Tawton.

Wild Swimming Dartmoor

In the early 19th century, Dartmoor emerged as a destination for Romantic travellers drawn to its wild beauty, tumultuous rivers, and sense of sublime isolation. As road and rail access improved, poets, clergymen, and educated walkers ventured onto the moor and found in Dartmoor’s rivers and waterfalls a perfect embodiment of the picturesque: fast-flowing streams carving through wooded valleys, moss-covered boulders strewn across rocky gorges, and waterfalls like Lydford’s White Lady plunging through shadowed clefts.

North Dartmoor gorges and waterfalls

Lydford became a regular stop on the alternative Grand Tour, particularly when Europe was closed for business during the Napoleonic Wars. Prior to that, it was famous as a hideout for a large family of outlaws – the Gubbins – who terrorised the neighbourhood and stole sheep from the farms of Dartmoor.

The main part of the gorge is hugely impressive but certainly no place to enter the water, even if you were allowed. A narrow chasm cuts deep into the grey Devonshire slate, where the grinding gyrations of river stones churn out huge, smooth cavities. The National Trust has repaired a Victorian viewing gangway that takes you right into the heart of one of the pots, allowing you to stand over and gaze down into the almighty whirlpools of the great Devil’s Cauldron.

Further downstream, there are paddling places and the impressive White Lady Falls, which tips a thirty-meter plume on sightseers below, its great white globules as hard as hail. To swim in the Lyd gorge, you’ll need to seek out the quieter upstream parts, such as Tucker’s Pool, a small plunge pool that shelves into the deep entrance of a narrow ravine. It’s reached through an old Victorian gate and may have once been part of the show gorge.

When I swam into it, large droplets of water fell on me from the vegetation and forest above. It was only a few feet wide in places, and the rock walls were smooth and sheer with few handholds, but it gave a visceral sense of the sublime.

Swim in Dartmoor’s mountain pools and lakes

I dreamt of waterfalls that night as I camped on the moors. A persistent drizzle had started, pattering gently on the tent and raising the river to a roar. By morning, it had abated, but a warm, sloth-like mist had descended. A local friend had arrived, and after a hot pot of tea and a warming, thoroughly waterproof fry-up at the hotel in Lydford – coats and maps hung out to dry on radiators all around – the waitress explained the route to some lovely pools she knew further upstream on the moor beneath the stone-built landmark of Widgery Cross.

This 1887 commemoration of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee proved elusive to find in the muggy mist, but we were feeling rather determined. We followed the small river for several hundred yards, startled sheep looming out of the bracken. Finally, beneath a craggy outcrop and a memorial to a lost soldier, we came to the most beautiful of mountain pools. As the rain thickened, the surface broke out in a melody of concentric rings, and we leapt about among the rocks, splashing and squealing.

By midday, the skies were clearing, and we made for Crazywell Pool, high on the moor above the prison at Princetown, and the headwaters for the Meavy and Tavy. This is a tin-mining area dating back almost a thousand years. Tin was so important to the Dartmoor economy that three independent ‘stannary’ parliaments were established in the sixteenth century, with a dedicated stannary prison at Lydford.

Crazy Well is a quarry that was probably dug around the same time. Now it’s one of the few ‘natural’ lakes on Dartmoor. As such, it has collected more than its fair share of legends. Its level is said to change with the tides at Plymouth, and, of course, it is said to be bottomless (ten sets of weighted bell ropes from Walkhampton Church were tied end-to-end, and still no bottom was found). To us, though, on a blustery August afternoon, with clouds racing across a blue sky, it was simply a wonderful moor-top lake – sheltered, wide, and finally sunny, with views out over the world.

The best rivers, waterfalls and swimming holes, Dartmoor

The western flanks of Dartmoor have many more streams and valleys to explore, all blessed with the afternoon and sunset light. The Tavy Valley is particularly rich in hidden waterfalls and pools for those who like to explore, while the Plym is a popular weekend bathing spot for those who drive up from Plymouth and park by their picnic at Cadover Bridge.

The Erme Valley, due south through Ivybridge, is home to one of the richest concentrations of Bronze Age monuments in Europe, featuring an extraordinary number of stone rows, cairns, hut circles, and stone circles dating from around 2500–1500 BC.

However, for many, The River Dart itself will be the main draw. With river pools and sandy bays, oak gorges and towering tors, the Dart was the setting for Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies and is one of the most beautiful wild-swimming rivers in the UK.

In a deep gorge far upstream of Newbridge, lying on the flat, hot rocks by a gurgling river, I was miles from anywhere. Dense woodland tumbled down the side of the moor, a light spray lifts off the water, and the forest twitters with birdsong. Somewhere along here, the hero of The Water Babies, Tom the chimney sweep, was lulled into the water by the fairies.

Holne, the birthplace of Charles Kingsley, is a good starting point for river walks. The river is a ten-minute walk down through the fields. You’ll find a large rock by a small waterfall, partly in sunshine, partly in shade – a place made for lazy picnics and sunny afternoons.

Exploring further downstream brings you first to Horseshoe Falls and then to Salters Pool, and within twenty minutes, you’ll arrive at the car park of Newbridge, where a narrow medieval bridge crosses the river. There’s a National Park visitors’ hut and an easy walk downstream to the green lawns of Spitchwick Common. With its easy access, gentle pools, and good swimming, it’s almost too popular and can be busy on a summer day, creating parking and litter problems. So, head back up the other side of the river for a good half an hour, and you’ll arrive at Wellsfoot Island. On the far side of this picturesque piece of woodland, there’s a red sandy beach in a bend of the river under Holne Cliff. This is a fabulous deep pool by a coppice of spindly birch. Feel the fine-grain sand running with the current between your toes.

But the best pools are also the most remote, miles upstream from Newbridge, in the forest halfway to Dartmeet, below Mel Tor. These legendary swimming holes are surrounded by large flat rocks with chutes between them for floating down on rubber rings. Whether you walk up the river from Holne, down from Dartmeet, or scramble over the steep slopes from Mel Tor, it’s quite a trek. You should be able to find your own pool – there are plenty to choose from.

While I mused, I suddenly saw three wet-suited swimmers on rings riding the river current, who must have come from Dartmeet, at least two miles upstream. ‘Is there anywhere good to swim up there?’ I called out, ever searching for the perfect pool. ‘Everywhere’s good to swim!’ they replied. Apparently, the Dartmeet-to-Newbridge run is popular with the most daring local swimmers but not generally recommended unless water levels are very low and you know where the waterfalls are.

The sport of ‘hydrosurfing’ is catching on in France, where they gear you up with helmets and padded suits. One local told me that the best swimmers here do it without anything at all, just in their trunks, and have learned to curl their bodies like eels to pass in between the rocks and slip unharmed over the waterfalls. They can feel the micro-currents with their skin and move through the water like otters. If you’re looking for the Dartmoor waterbabies, all grown up, I think these might be them.

Famous swims and secret dips on Dartmoor

The River Teign flows down the eastern valleys of the moor. Perhaps the most spectacular pools are the Victorian ‘Salmon Leaps’ in the woods beneath Castle Drogo. Three rectangular pools cascade into one another, resembling stacked glasses of champagne.

Castle Drogo was the last castle built in England. Constructed in the 1920s by merchant millionaire Julius Drewe – self-styled as Baron Drogo de Teign – it stands high above the wooded gorge of the Teign. As part of his landscaping project, the ‘Baron’ installed several weirs to create river pools to help stock the river with salmon. The first pool is a long, peaceful stretch of river that runs beneath an elegant suspension bridge. Drewe faced a problem because the dam that creates the pool also impeded the upward migration of spawning salmon, so to solve this, he built an impressive series of salmon ‘leaps’.

While the peaceful pool above is popular with the local girls, the salmon leaps are favoured by the lads. Each pool is about four feet deep, with a flat concrete bottom. The turbulence literally lifts you off your feet, but you soon get the knack of bobbing about in these mountain jacuzzis. The water bubbles wildly as it tumbles from one pool to the next, massaging and pummelling all the muscles in your body.

Another mile or so downstream, you’ll find a second weir and river pool before arriving at Fingle Bridge and its pub. This narrow, medieval packhorse bridge was built to service the gorge’s once-busy industries: corn milling, charcoal burning, and bark ripping. It has long been a local beauty spot for paddling and picnicking, and even in 1894, the unknown author of A Gentleman’s Walking Tour of Dartmoor suggested it was a ‘great place for picnics’. Little has changed, and if you want more peace and quiet, the weir behind Chagford is charming.

Swimming pool, Devon

Or why not visit the town-run swimming pool in Chagford? It’s fed by the river, which comes straight off the moor, though the health and safety officials still insist that chlorine is added. It was dug in 1947 as a co-operative effort by the village, and some of the original old boys still come down to make tea. These days, it has solar heaters and an indoor café, in case it rains.

An important source of the Teign is Blackaton Brook, which rises by the windswept stone circle of Little Hound Tor, back up on the moor. From here, it gathers momentum through Raybarrow Hill and Throwleigh Common before arriving at the tiny and rather secret Shilley Pool. In this sheltered and sunny glen, bathers and nymphs have built a low dam to create a perfect bath. The water flows in across wide stone slabs, perfect for sunbathing, and the depth reaches about three feet. Lying in the stream, with the current creating eddies along one’s length, in the warmth of the afternoon sun, you feel a very small part of some much larger, more wonderful thing.

Dartmoor has many secret bathing spots, often difficult to find, and this is one of its most special.

Ready to explore further? Discover more wild swimming and off-the-tourist-rack places in the Wild Swimming book, the Wild Guide Devon and Dartmoor or the Wild Guide South West. There’s also Wild Swimming Walks Dartmoor and South Devon, Wild Swimming Walks Exmoor and North Devon and Wild swimming Walks Dorset and East Devon