The light fantastic

The streets of Dartmouth are dappled year round with interesting light and shadow, but the low angle of the winter sunshine creates the most pleasing effects of all.

The long view

We’re here between Christmas and New Year to stay with Chris’s father and his wife in their candy coloured, terraced townhouse, enjoying views from our bedroom over to the Royal Naval College and up-river. It’s a time of seasonal drinks parties and long, lazy pub lunches, with occasional rambles to work off the excesses.

 Drinks party aspect

The town winds down the steep hillsides on either side of the mouth of the River Dart, offering up views in captivating slices.

 Slice of life

Down by the quayside, a cobbled stretch of road is backed by a row of houses in pastel shades. This part of Dartmouth frequently stands in for 18^th-century ports in Poldark-style costume dramas. It’s not too hard to imagine tricorn-hatted seafaring types striding purposefully along the waterfront.

Dartmouth’s old quayside

One day we walk the few miles overland to Dittisham, a tiny village clustered around a bend in the Dart. Its pub, the Ferry Inn, juts out over the shore and at peak times all human life jostles up and down the jetty, from daytrippers out of Totnes and Dartmouth to children baiting crabs, buckets and legs dangling over the sides.

Chris and the Jubilee Beacon

Looking towards Torquay

Dittisham’s Ferry Inn

We stay so long in the pub that it’s dusk by the time we catch the boat up river to town. On the way, someone spots a pontoon-load of chubby seals, who lazily glance over as we motor by, the dark water swirling and Dartmouth’s lights twinkling in the distance.

Seals bedding down

One of the Dart’s many boatyards