Part 5 of a series in which I walk and cycle as much as I can of the now-closed Devon and Somerset Railway (D&SR)
From Morebath the line moved on to Morebath Junction. Neither station is all that near Morebath village but the lie of the land make them as close as a profitable railway could get. I turn south, leaving the old bridge near Woodford behind me. A few yards later I turn north west, back to a bridge I’m fairly familiar with. The land is raised as the line crosses the road but little of this next bridge remains. The line swooped through farmland on its way to the junction.
I head back south to Hukeleyhead Cross and pick up a ridge road that lies broadly east-west. I can see the railway line down in the valley, marked now by a line of pylons. If you’re going to flatten out land for one technology, you might as well follow the same line for another. The bridge at Keen's is pretty and modelled, it seems, on local packhorse bridges. I had assumed that is what it was until I realised that the structure passed over nothing very much, rather than a river. This section of track is barely evident and now part of farmland.
Bonny Cross is my next point of interest. It is right by an old smithy and if you peer at a certain angle, the old horse shoes someone has fixed to the side of the house make hoofprints in the blue sky. I head for home, following a different part of the D&SR. At Morebath Junction the line split, one part continuing westward towards Barnstaple and the other south towards Tiverton.
I start again two weeks later. By this time it is the beginning of May and I’m aware I’m up against the vegetation although I am to be surprised at just how fast it grows when you wish to take photographs. For the section from Morebath Junction to Exebridge I will walk. The sections of track furthest away from where I live required a bus. Then I switched to the ebike, then the push bike. The nearer to home I am the less help I need with the travel and the more relaxed I am. Buses require you to keep to a timetable. Ebikes need recharging. Pushbikes are great but tiring. Once on your own two feet you’re more limited in what you can do in the course of a day, but there is something freeing in admitting you will achieve less – make of that what you will.
On the way back to Morebath Junction as my starting point I encounter some badger-like sheep, which I find out are Zwartbles (or black blazes). They are something of a high point, because the rest of the time I’m muttering to myself about why we no longer have the old line between Bampton and Morebath and why I have to climb up and over a hill rather than trundle along a much flatter path. Worse still I then have to walk along the B3190 which has minimal verge and is populated by people who think “national speed limit” means “drive at 60mph and damn everybody else”. Once again I am reminded that cars convey freedom only to those who are in them. To anyone navigating the landscape in less protected form they are both restrictive and terrifying.
West of the B-road the old line runs through farmland and is initially invisible, absorbed into farmyard. I pause to photograph the tunnel to the east of the road and imagine what it would have been like to see steam trains thundering beneath my feet. And then I realise that just as steam trains are now gone, deemed an obsolete form of transport, so cars may eventually be so much rarer. Perhaps one day I’ll stand on a road and remember the terror felt as cars rattled past, and be glad they are no more.
I wind my way up through Morebath before turning west along a side road. It’s a National Cycle Route so you know it’s going to be potholed, inconvenient and indirect. It is however lovely for walking on. It’s a sunny day and I pass a worm attempting to slide across hot tarmac. I walk on by. Except everything needs a random act of kindness at some point. Well, everything except Tories and Nazis. I turn back, move the worm off the tarmac onto soil, keep watch with my shadow over it until it has retreated under leaf mould.
There is a footpath at Ashtown farm that leads north-south and crosses the old line. It is blocked with electric fence of the kind used for cattle and I find myself standing by it, cattle-like, listening for the tick of a battery. Then I realise it’s actually baler twine masquerading as electric fence and I step over it, towards another kissing gate which marks an old level crossing. The old railway line is clear and inviting. I’m watched only by cows, although they do seem curious. Well cows and a nagging sense that I shouldn’t actually venture along the old line, whatever call it has.
I turn back to the farm, cross the baler twine again. And the farmer approaches with the words “there’s no public access on the old line”. I stop and chat to her about what I’m doing. She opens up about the old track and I’m glad I stopped for the worm because if I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be having this conversation now, and the worm would be drying on the road rather than turning the soil. The farmer has lived there since before the line was shut. She remembers travelling on the last train to Brushford. She explains that when it was shut the line was offered back to the farm as the original owner. It was she said too built up to dismantle so they now use it as farm track between fields.
I head back to the road. I pretend I’m time travelling although I’m not sure if I’m going further forward or further back. To my left I can trace the path of the old line through the valley, although it’s guess work rather than anything too definite. Eventually the road reaches the A396, the once toll road from Bampton to Minehead. Here there is a high bridge over the road. It looks to me like Sminhay’s scruffy little sister.
I take my time examining it and realise it is actually something else, this bridge. I’m mocking it undeservedly. It is scruffier because it is more subject to traffic and the ageing effects of diesel fumes. It actually has the grand lines and proportions of Sminhay but you have to take the time to see it. The bridge is well fenced off – local rumour has it that a stag chased by the hunt was cornered on the bridge and chose the leap onto the road. But these old lines are deer paths and I think there are better ways to prevent their deaths.
The Minehead road followed the Exe valley for much of its route. I follow the footpath to the west of the road. You can see the waters-meet here, the point where the Exe and the Barle join and I’m reminded again that I’m not really sure who decided the Barle ran into the Exe rather than the Exe running into the Barle. We could have had Barlebridge leading down to Barleter and finally Barlemouth. Maybe in another universe we do.
The footpath brings me to one of my favourite points, where I can pretend I’ve found the remains of an ancient civilisation. But what human toil did go into the making of the Exe Railway Bridge and then again into its dismantling? One remains within living memory although I may be able to find out about both. For now though, my legs have had enough and I head back over towards Grant’s hill and home.
The journey has one more surprise for me though. I intend to follow the Exe Valley Way home but decide at a cross roads on a hill to try something else. And there I find another green lane. It feels like a secret spot, like a path back somewhere. And for now, it is my path back home.
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