Category Archives: River Dart

A Train Station with No Railway

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A Train Station with No Railway

Slap bang on Dartmouth’s riverside embankment is a former railway station which has since been converted to a restaurant. Nothing unusual about that you might think, but the station never had a railway in the first place – no tracks, nothing – so why was there a station here?

The simple answer is that it was used as a booking office to buy train tickets, but I suppose you’re now wondering why you would want to buy a train ticket at a booking office where there were no trains. Well, the answer to this is also quite simple, or at least up to a point.

Basically, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s railway line to Torbay stopped at Torre, and the Dartmouth and Torbay Railway Company was formed to extend it to Dartmouth via Torquay, Paignton, Brixham Road (now Churston) and Kingswear, but the proposed bridge across the River Dart was beset by problems and so the railway line terminated at Kingswear.

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Originally posted 2021-05-05 17:02:40.

Greenway – Home to a Famous Seafarer and an even more Famous Novelist

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Greenway - Home to a Famous Seafarer and an even more Famous Novelist

When I first wrote this post, there were a couple of pleasant alternative ways of getting from Torbay to this delightful National Trust (NT) property on the banks of the River Dart. One was by using the Greenway vintage bus that operated from Torquay, and the other was by taking the Paignton to Kingswear Steam Railway and alight at Greenway Halt. Alas, neither option is available now, so it means driving through the village of Galmpton (which lies between Paignton and Brixham) and down the lane to the property’s car park.

If, on the other hand, you’re coming from the Dartmouth side of the river, the Greenway and Dittisham Ferry company operate sailings between Dartmouth, Dittisham and Greenway and is definitely worth considering.

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Originally posted 2020-12-13 11:14:07.

Along the Lower Dart

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Along the Lower Dart

Of all Devon’s rivers, the Dart has to be my favourite: From source to sea, it’s the most beguiling of rivers, and for this post I’m going to describe its charms between the lowest bridging point at Totnes to the mouth of the river at Dartmouth.

At Totnes the river is still tidal, and until the area around Totnes Bridge was drained, it was wet, marshy ground; and I suppose it must have been around here where Brutus, the first king of Britain landed – that’s if you believe the story of course – but I’ve covered more about the history of Totnes in a separate post.

Totnes Bridge was built between 1826-28 and is the latest in a long line of bridges that has spanned the river here over many centuries. Today a modern road bridge just upstream, called Brutus Bridge, has taken the brunt of the traffic, not just away from this bridge, but from the town centre as well.

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Originally posted 2020-11-27 14:50:56.