Route Britannia, the Journey South: A Spontaneous Bicycle Ride through Every County in Britain

by Steven Primrose-Smith

  Remember Sarah the police officer in Wales? Well, her mum Jo worked at Lanhydrock, a large stately home a few miles south of Bodmin, and I'd been invited to visit. Unfortunately, today was the day that Jo didn't actually work, but I could still have a look around this nine hundred acre estate and pretend I was one of the nobs from Downton Abbey.

  The house showed how people with money lived in Victorian Britain. The parents and ten kids were cared for by a house staff of thirty, including eighteen in the kitchen. That's one and a half full-time people per person just to cook stuff for you. There were also fifty people to maintain the externals and extensive garden.

  “And this wasn't even their main home!” said one of the National Trust staff.

  They had another place in London as well as a house in Cambridge.

  The family's eldest son had been an MP, known as the best-dressed man in Parliament. It's a pity he wasn't also the best-behaved man in Parliament. He was kicked out of the place for electoral fraud. He just waited for a bit and then found a new constituency.

  Lanhydrock's long hall has an elaborate paster ceiling depicting scenes from Genesis, and the walls are lined with theological books. To give you a sense of size, the room was once used to play badminton. While I wandered around admiring my surroundings, a wedding was taking place outside and a group of well-to-do women were assessing the sartorial qualities of the gathering through a large window.

  “Ooo, I don't like that black and purple thing she's wearing,” said one.

  “Oh, it's all the rage these days, Cynthia.”

  “Is it? Is it really? Well, Gemma, it's facking awful.”

  I continued on to Lostwithiel and found a campsite, as nice as any I'd visited on this journey and for only a fiver. Unfortunately, the nearest shop was back in town, down an endless 17% hill. Here's a thing: When designing a road, if you find you've had to include an escape lane then maybe throw the design away and start again. If the Alps don't need escape lanes then you can be sure Cornwall doesn't. Today's was lethal, a one-metre wide strip of sand and gravel directly beside a metal fence. The only thing it would help any out-of-control driver escape is existence.

  *

  I set off on another lovely day and shortly passed Restormel Castle, a pretty, round building with a proper, although dry, moat. It was so well-preserved I could do a complete circuit of the walls where the lookouts would have stood. The gardens around it were full of huge, blossoming trees. No one else was about except a dad and his son, and a large Polish family whose dog wanted to eat my shoes.

  The road took me past the café of the Duchy of Cornwall, Prince Charles's place. Given his love of homeopathy I could imagine a conversation at the café 's counter.

  “I ordered an Americano but I really wanted an espresso.”

  “Oh, you want it stronger, do you? Just let me add some more water. That'll do the trick.”

  I decided to bail on the A390 to Liskeard because of the traffic and I headed into the lanes, which were often nice but always painful.

  The route took me through the tiny village of Herodsfoot, one of a number of Britain's special places. In England and Wales there are 54 of them and they are known as Thankful Villages. They are grateful because every single man they sent to the First World War came back alive. You might think 54 death-free villages is a lot but it isn't when you consider that there were 16,000 distinct settlements in Britain and every one of those 15,946 unthankful villages lost at least someone, and in some cases hundreds or thousands.

  Such lucky places weren't dished out equally. While Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire don't score a single village, there are nine in Somerset alone. You might think this was maybe because their soldiers just hung out in the trenches drinking cider and not getting shot at, but it was more likely because of the idea of the Mate's Brigade, where groups of friends went off to join the same battalion, and if that battalion found itself in something as lethal as the Battle of the Somme, not many were coming home. Likewise, if your village's battalion was lucky enough to be sent to guard something nobody wanted in the first place, then you'd all come back.

  At the time I was cycling around, Darren Hayman, a singer-songwriter, was also visiting every Thankful village to write and record a track about each. He's releasing the songs on a trilogy of albums. It's not a project about war, but about the villages themselves. Talking of one village, he said:

  “...when I was walking down the high street you were just seeing buildings that used to be something else. It's marked in stone: the school house, the police building, the community hall...It's a problem. Villages have diminishing young populations. The village is in trouble.”

  This was something I'd already noticed, no pubs, no shops, let alone a school. But if the villages were in trouble, and most of the towns were being converted into chain-identical Anytowns, what was left of Britain?

  The road in and out of Herodsfoot was another sixteen-per-center. I was beginning to hate the street planners of Cornwall. But at least by now spring had fully sprung, Flowers of all colours grew in the hedgerows on either side of my single track lane and, at one point, trees grew over the road to form a perfect, green tunnel. It was like cycling through the gateway to an elven wonderland.

  The onward roads to Torpoint were absolutely knackering and took an hour and a half longer than I'd expected. I turned up at half three and headed for the marina. I was on the lookout for a boat called Excalibur. I couldn't see it. It didn't help that I didn't know what sort of boat it was.

  I popped into the marina's office, but no one was about. A large whiteboard with a drawing of the marina was on the wall, each boat with a berth labelled, but there was no Excalibur.

  Outside, at the Torpoint Mosquito Sailing Club, a weekend-long beer festival was in full swing, live music booming out on to its picnic-tabled terrace. Despite taking my time to get here, I was still too early for my appointment with Excalibur's skipper, if indeed I was even at the right place.

  I cycled back into town for a look around but there wasn't much happening on this lazy Sunday afternoon. A ferry arrived from Plymouth, just across the water, and spilled its load of cars and vans and the occasional cyclist on to the peninsula on which Torpoint stands. This brief flurry of life quickly subsided.

  There's never any place better to wait around than at a pub. I opted for the King's Arms, near the port. I sat outside with a pint of cider and looked towards Plymouth. The ferry goes every fifteen minutes during the day. Torpoint is one of its commuter town.

  A couple in their forties bearing a bottle of red wine came to sit at the next picnic bench, the fella eventually spilling himself on to mine. He looked at me and smiled. He had mad eyes, like Brad Pitt's in 12 Monkeys, except that Simon's eyes were alcohol-induced. He asked me what I was doing. I told him.

  “You'll see some good stuff,” Simon said with a mild slur.

  “Yep. There are some fleas I want to see.”

  “Eh?”

  “They're Mexican.”

  He looked confused but then managed to focus for a second.

  “I'll get you on The One Show!” he screamed emphatically.

  “Shut up, Simon,” said his wife Helen.

  “Do you know anyone on The One Show?” I asked.

  “No.” He swivelled his eyes. “Green Army!”

  He punched the air joyously. He was celebrating Plymouth reaching the Division One playoffs.

  “I'll collect some money for you,” he said, jumping up.

  “Sit down, Simon!”

  “There's no need,” I said. “But thanks.”

  He got up anyway and went from window to window of the cars queuing for the ferry.

  “He's been out since eleven this morning,” said Helen wearily.

  “Green army!” we heard him shout.

  He came back empty-handed.

  “Have you seen this?” he said, showing me his elbow.

  “You had an accident?”

&nb
sp; “I can't believe you're telling him this,” said Helen.

  “I got pushed. I was at a campsite and talking to this Canadian, a black fella. About football.” He mentioned a West Ham player whose name escapes me. “I called him a big, black bastard.”

  “Who? The Canadian?”

  “No, the footballer. The Canadian didn't mind. But a woman there did. She screamed at me an' called me a racist. To be honest, we were all a bit drunk. An' she pushed me.” A wave of mild discomfort crossed his face, and then he smiled again. “I'll get you on The One Show.”

  “No, it's alright.”

  “Green army!”

  He went for another wander and I spoke to Helen. She had only met up with him about ten minutes earlier and appeared to be trying to catch him alcoholically, although she had a long way to go. Although I didn't catch her true job title, she was a sort of school bouncer. If any trouble kicks off it's her job to go and extract the offending pupil from the classroom. It's unbelievable that someone is needed full-time for a role like that.

  “How many kids do you pull out a week?” I asked.

  “Depends. Usually it's around ten. But it's always more the day after a full moon.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don't know why. It just is.”

  “You need to go to The Jetty,” said Simon, returning.

  “Where's The Jetty?”

  “There,” he replied, pointing to a pub across the road. “It's got a great view from the terrace.”

  The view appeared to be the same view we could see either side of the pub building, but he was adamant.

  “It is nice,” said Helen.

  We went across the road, they bought me another cider and another bottle of red for themselves.

  “If you're looking for weird places you should find the gallows in the docks of Plymouth. But they're difficult to get into,” said Simon.

  “Why?”

  “I dunno. Green army! Did I tell you I can get you on The One Show?”

  “Shut up, Simon!”

  “Have you always lived around here?” I asked.

  “Nah, a long time ago I used to live in London,” replied Helen. “Across the road was a squat. Boy George, Marilyn and Steve Strange lived there.”

  “Did you ever speak to them?”

  “Well, we taunted Boy George once and he yelled, 'Fuck off, you slag!' But that was all. It's my claim to fame.”

  Helen and Simon had been a fun way to fill in the time before the real reason I was in Torpoint, to meet Lizzie, captain of the good ship Excalibur. She'd said I could spend the night on her boat. Other than that, like that time machine in the Boscastle witchcraft museum, details were sketchy.

  At seven, I returned to the beer festival at the marina and met Lizzie.

  “Do you know anything about the gallows at Plymouth Docks? Apparently they're hard to get into.”

  “Yes,” she replied, “because that's where the nuclear subs are serviced.”

  “OK, really? I'll forget that then.”

  Lizzie wasn't alone. With her were Tim, Theresa and another Simon. Tim's sleek 35-foot yacht was in the marina. I wouldn't be staying on that one. But Lizzie's 21-foot Excalibur was in open water on the other side of the harbour wall. She'd bought it recently for a few hundred quid, covered in mould, and was slowly cleaning and restoring it. That's where I'd be sleeping.

  Lizzie's a primary school teacher who had done plenty of cycle touring of her own. She's harder than me. She doesn't even use a tent, just a bivouac, the nutter.

  “So, do you like the pointy end?” asked Theresa, referring to Cornwall.

  I asked if this is the local way of referring to it. It isn't.

  I know we had a laugh that night but details are fuzzy. I was three beers ahead before they arrived, they caught me up very quickly and then together we sprinted off into the beery distance.

  We got to the end of the night and I still wasn't sure what the sleeping arrangements were. As it turned out, Martin rowed Lizzie and me out in a rubber dinghy to Excalibur, where she showed me around – it doesn't take long on a 21-foot boat – and gave me a bottle of elderflower cider. They then got back in the dinghy and left me to float in the water all alone, the bright lights of Plymouth to my right, the more muted ones of Torpoint to my left. I sat there, bobbing in the sea under a black sky, sipping the cider and watching distant lighthouses twinkle. I don't think I've ever felt so peaceful.

  *

  I slept the sleep of a womb-housed babe, floating in the amniotic fluid of Plymouth Sound, on a tranquil, windless night. The cider helped as well.

  I was told to text Lizzie when I woke up and a few minutes later a very splashy dinghy appeared, oared this time by Theresa, perhaps not as experienced a sailor as Martin, with Lizzie as cox and taking a circuitous route roughly but not entirely in my direction. As they approached, the still morning air was filled with giggles and mild swearing.

  Eventually they pulled alongside and I climbed aboard. I took over on the oars for the trip back to land and made an even bigger hash of it than Theresa.

  We had a cup of tea on Simon's yacht while everyone else nursed their hangovers – my brain haemorrhage-based hangover-less superpower remains – and then walked into town to score ourselves a great full Cornish breakfast. Outside the café, four blokes were attempting to change the wheel on a ropey-looking, black sports car. On the back of it was stencilled “No Fucks Given!” and, more bizarrely, on the boot it simply read “Her tits”. As we passed, their car jack collapsed, slamming the partially tyre-less car to the ground with a crash and, audibly at least, one fuck was given.

  As I rolled off the ferry the heat was on as I headed up into the hills north of Plymouth. It was Monday 30th of May and summer was coming. The traffic of the A386 wasn't pleasant but short of doing a massive detour it seemed the easiest way to reach the gateway to the Dartmoor Forest. Today I would cycle across the entire thing.

  Dartmoor Forest is a bit of a misnomer. It's mostly open nothingness, moorland with the odd clump of trees. The B3212 should have been lonelier than it was but as the only east-west route across the middle of this 368 square mile National Park it sees more traffic than is ideal.

  Dartmoor is a place of ghost stories, of pixies, spectral hounds and a headless horseman. And then there are the Hairy Hands. These disembodied mitts supposedly grab steering wheels and force drivers off the road. It's one explanation for the disproportionately high number of road accidents around here. Another explanation is alcohol.

  The moorland was studded with sheep and cows and the famous wild ponies, mostly chocolate brown, wandering about the place. Trees aside, nothing grew very tall, the moorland dotted with the occasional low shrub and the odd single stone, standing all alone, like Katie Hopkins at a party.

  I expected there to be a surprise campsite somewhere around Moretonhampstead but I was disappointed. And I'd also expected the hills to stop near Exeter, but I had no such luck. I kept going and found a camping ground four miles the other side. It was a bit dilapidated with no facilities except a toilet. A mouldy caravan sat rotting in one corner opposite a bank of equally dead-looking camper vans. It was like a graveyard for Breaking Bad-style mobile meth labs.

  I set off into the surrounding lanes to find the only supermarket around but couldn't. I did, however, find two grown men hugging each other and weeping inconsolably. Eventually I worked out where the supermarket was but by then it had gone six and it was already shut. Seeking help, I was directed to the grocery-shop-of-last-resort, a secret non-motorway entrance to the M5 Services. Finding something to make for dinner was like the most depressing episode ever of Ready Steady Cook.

  *

  I woke up to a day that promised sunshine but then broke that promise, clouded over and delivered a sharp wind, fortunately from behind. It was another day of climbing and inadequate roads for the quantity of traffic. All pretence at remaining positive about the current infrastructure had long since been abandone
d.

  I started late and decided to make a lazy day of it. Tomorrow I had an appointment but today I would end the day at the coastal village of Beer, if only because of its name.

  The afternoon was hills and more hills, and then I saw a sign for the National Cycle Route No. 2, directing me off the main road, down a web of lanes towards Beer five miles away. I liked the idea of following a sign for Beer. As on previous NCR paths it made an effort to seek out the least bike-friendly terrain.

  The ride took me through Branscombe on the south coast with its pretty St Winifred's church up on the hill and then into the village itself, a Best Kept one from a few years ago. Maybe it had let its standards slide of late or perhaps they share out the awards equitably over the years.

  In the centre of this dot of a place is an old bakery and a blacksmith, who hung around outside his forge, pondering whether there really was enough work to keep this type of thing going. The beer gardens of the roadside pubs were full of happy punters enjoying this hidden-away corner of Devon, drinking themselves into that summer ale-oblivion that would end with one of them crossing the road to the blacksmith and asking him how much he'd charge for a suit of armour.

  It was here at Branscombe that the MSC Napoli was beached in 2007, resulting in a mass-looting of some of its 2,394 containers. The Daily Mail wrote that looters arrived from “as far away as Liverpool”, in no way reinforcing any stereotypes. As well as biscuits, nappies, perfume and car parts, some people zoomed off on salvaged BMW motorcycles. In the same article, one drinker from the village pub said, “The locals didn't take anything – maybe a few souvenirs. It was northerners who took everything.” That said, if you live in Branscombe, everyone in Britain is a northerner.

  Before I could reach my destination there was of course another huge hill to ascend, and then I tumbled down the other side, passing Beer Quarry, and then obviously had another climb to the campsite on Beer Head, the town's high cliffs with Seaton in the distance.

  The place itself is small but it's amusing to see the word 'Beer' attached to each business's name. The Beer Pharmacy suggested all ills cured by ales. The Beer Church was one at which even I could worship.