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Click to View: Bruce Perkins Instructor Page

Walk Description:

 We’ll kick start our senses (and our body) with a warm up in the shelter of the road bridge before setting off along the Tarka trail towards Torrington. After just a few yards on our right we will find “Rolle Tunnel”, an archway signposted to Taddiport. We will pass through the archway and follow the path down to the left where we will locate “Rolle Road”. Formally part of the Rolle Canal (A hand-built canal approximately 6 feet wide stretching some 7 miles linking Great Torrington to the river Torridge 3 miles above Bideford; taking 300 workers 2.5 years to construct at a personal cost to John, Lord Rolle the equivalent to more than £3million at today’s costs!! it was officially opened in February 1827 and closed in 1871 and later filled in to create a toll road. You can actually walk along the canal towpath or even on the canal bed. It’s in this part that you can really imagine what the canal looked like. We will follow the tree covered, uneven but well-trodden tow path/canal bed for approximately ½ mile, shielded on one side by a steep tree lined bank and open to the river Torridge on the other while taking in the sights and sounds of Mother Nature. We will then take in the sights and sounds of a completely different nature as we pass through the old disused Taddiport industrial site (home of the once Dairy Crest creamery), employing more than 100 people, but has been derelict for more than 25 years. As such it has become a haven for graffiti artists before (on the edge of Taddiport) following the footpath running parallel to the river and back towards the Puffing Billy. Along the way we pass a magnificent weir, the rear of the old industrial site and cross an open field before once again entering into the shelter of the woods with its seasonal flora & fauna and ascending a set of steps back onto the Tarka Trail a few yards from where we began our adventure, here we will conduct our warm down prior to partaking of some well-earned refreshments.      

Location Notes:

Start point for Learn2 & Rolle Canal walks