The Ashprington Circular: A 5-Mile Loop Through the Quiet Dart
The Ashprington circular is the walk you suggest when a friend visits Totnes for the weekend and asks for a proper, sit-down-after walk that doesn’t eat the whole day. Five miles, give or take, with a working village, a 19th century pub, a stretch of waterside path and just enough climb to earn a second pint. It uses a section of the Dart Valley Trail going out and quiet South Hams lanes coming back, so the scenery never repeats.
Start it from Totnes and you have a self-contained half day on foot. Start it from Ashprington and you can cut it shorter still, with a shorter loop around the village fields.
Where to begin
The classic start is Steamer Quay car park in Totnes (TQ9 5AL). Pay-and-display, free toilets, and direct access to the river path. If you’d rather skip the first mile of suburban riverside walking, park instead at the small pull-in near Ashprington church and start there. Be sensible about not blocking gates; locals use these lanes daily.
By train, Totnes station is a 12-minute walk to Steamer Quay, so the whole circular can be done car-free from anywhere on the Plymouth-Exeter mainline.
From Totnes along the Dart
Leave Steamer Quay with the river on your left and follow the firm towpath downstream. This is a wide, gentle path used by joggers, dog walkers and the rowing club, and it gives you a useful warm-up before the climb. After about a mile you pass under tall ashes and round a long bend where the Dart widens noticeably; this is where the tidal feel of the river really begins.
The Dart Valley Trail signs lead you off the river up a kissing gate and into a wooded climb. It’s one of the only real ups on the walk, gaining around 85 metres over roughly half a mile. The path can hold water in winter; in spring it’s bordered by wood anemones and stitchwort. You emerge on a high lane with a long view across the valley.
Ashprington village and the Durant Arms
The lane drops down into Ashprington, a single street of cottages around a small village green. The Durant Arms is the obvious lunch stop, with low ceilings, decent local ales and a kitchen that does proper pub food rather than gastropub theatre. There’s a small village shop opposite the church if the pub is closed or if you want a coffee on a bench instead.
Ashprington church (St David’s) is worth ten minutes for its 14th century tower and graveyard yews. From the church gate, the return route is signed up a tarmac lane heading west.
The return via Wadland Down lanes
The second half of the Ashprington circular runs through some of the quietest country lanes in the South Hams. You climb steadily past a working farm and the back of Sharpham Park (gated, not open to walkers on this side), then drop through high-banked hedges where foxgloves and red campion line the verges in summer. Two field paths take you off the lane briefly, both well signed, and bring you down through grazing pasture back into Bridgetown on the outskirts of Totnes.
From Bridgetown it’s a 10-minute walk back across the river to Steamer Quay. If your feet are done, catch the Number 88 town bus from the bottom of Bridgetown Hill.
Stiles, dogs and underfoot
Expect five to six stiles or kissing gates, one short woodland climb, two muddy field corners after rain and around a mile of quiet single-track lane. Dogs are welcome throughout but must be on lead in the cattle fields beyond Ashprington. It is not a buggy route; the stiles and the woodland climb rule that out. Wear walking shoes in dry weather, boots after rain.
The Ashprington circular suits any season, but May and September are the picks. In winter, an extra hour of daylight and waterproof trousers will keep things comfortable.
Variations on the basic loop
You can stretch the Ashprington circular into different shapes depending on time and energy. The Sharpham extension adds about a mile by detouring through the estate woods between Totnes and Ashprington. The Tuckenhay extension drops down Bow Creek from Ashprington to the Maltsters Arms and back via a quiet creek-side lane, adding around two miles and an extra pub. The Cornworthy extension takes you another two miles south to the village and its ruined priory arch, then back to Ashprington via field paths.
If you’d rather start short, park at Ashprington itself, walk down through the estate drive to the river, head north along the Dart Valley Trail for a mile, then loop back across the high ground to the village. That gives you a three-mile mini circular with most of the same scenery and no need to cope with the Totnes-Ashprington climb.
For more loops in the same corner of the South Hams, see our walks guide, and pair this with a quiet evening in Ashprington village if you want to make a proper day of it.