Clovelly, Devon's Picture Postcard Village

A Tiny Place but A Big Attraction in Southwest England

Oct 27, 2008 Paul Lightfoot

From its origins as a fishing community, picturesque Clovelly has become one of the main draws for tourists on the north coast of Devon.

There is surely no other village like Clovelly. A narrow cobbled street, with steps and far too steep for traffic, zig-zags between whitewashed cottages down a little valley cut into an otherwise forbidding coastline. At the bottom a massive stone pier protects a section of beach and a line of small boats, grounded on the shingle at low tide.

People have lived here since the iron age, but in its present form the village dates from the construction of the pier in the sixteenth century. Clovelly remains the only harbour on a twenty-mile stretch of the north Devon and Cornwall coast.

Clovelly in Art and Literature

Owned first by several generations of the Cary family and, since 1738, by the Hamlyns, Clovelly emerged from obscurity in the middle of the nineteenth century. James Hamlyn created Hobby Drive, a pretty three-mile track along the coast that remains one of the village’s attractions. JMW Turner, one of Britain’s greatest artists, painted the rather primitive “Clovelly Bay” in his unmistakable style in 1822.

Charles Kingsley, who had lived here as a child, wrote about Clovelly and drew on local characters in his adventure novel Westward Ho!, published in 1855. After Charles Dickens visited he used Clovelly as the basis of the village of Steepways in his novel “A Message from the Sea” (1860), where packhorses and donkeys hauled fish and coal up the cobbled street from “the dancing fleet of village boats.”

Clovelly Then and Now

Donkeys still occasionally carry visitors’ suitcases to and from the New Inn near the top of the steep walk down to the harbour, but most heavy items are now carried by sledges while the donkeys carry children around a field at the top of the village. And there have been other changes.

A hundred years ago there were 60 fishing boats in the harbour, all rigged with masts and sails, while now there are fewer boats and most are used for pleasure trips along the coast and as far as Lundy Island. In the summer a Land Rover carries visitors to and from the harbour by a back route. And the numbers of visitors, especially in July and August, have increased many times over.

Preserving Clovelly’s Historic Character

But the present owners of the village have maintained strict rules on the kinds of developments that are allowed, in order to preserve as much as possible of Clovelly’s character as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. There are no holiday cottages in the village and any changes and repairs to the buildings are as faithful to the original as possible.

Clovelly’s quaint charm can be best appreciated on sunny weekdays out of season, in the late Spring or early Autumn when the flowers lining the lanes are in bloom. The hand-made pottery and silk workshops above the village, the fisherman’s cottage preserved as it was in the 1930s and the Red Lion Hotel beside the harbour all contribute to a sense of escape from normal modern life.

In the Charles Kingsley museum with its displays of early photographs, visitors are greeted with a recording of his poignant poem “The Three Fishers” in which three wives mourn the loss of their husbands.

The Clovelly Herring Festival

At any time of the year, the village is a fine starting or finishing point for hikers. The route east to Hartland Point is one of the most spectacular sections of the SW Coastal Footpath.

For those who enjoy the company of other visitors, Clovelly offers several special events each year including the Maritime Festival, Lifeboat Day, the Lobster and Crab Feast and the Christmas Lights display.

The Guardian newspaper listed the Clovelly Herring Festival in November among Britain’s five best autumn food festivals for 2008.

Access

Probably the best way to visit Clovelly is the old fashioned way, by boat, avoiding the crowds and gaining a distinctive view of the village and its harbourside cottages. Public bus services run to the Visitor Centre.

For car drivers, Clovelly is 12 miles west of Bideford off the A39 Atlantic Highway. The village itself is not accessible by motor vehicles and visitors should be prepared for more than a casual stroll down and back up again. The Land Rover taxi service between the car park and the harbour operates only in the summer months.

Entry to Clovelly is through the Visitor Centre beside the car park, which charges an entrance fee, used in part to maintain the character of the village.

The copyright of the article Clovelly, Devon's Picture Postcard Village in U.K./Ireland Travel is owned by Paul Lightfoot. Permission to republish Clovelly, Devon's Picture Postcard Village in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The steep, cobbled main street	Clovelly harbour at low tide	Small boats protected by the stone pier
Looking down towards the harbour	Flowers line the streets