Clovelly – a village lost in time

Today I’m looking at the picturesque N. Devon village of Clovelly; a village relatively untouched my the modern world.

Built into a 400′ cliff, with a car free cobbled street, 2 pubs and a working harbour, Clovelly shows a unique view of times past.

The main (only) cobbled street is called either “up a long” or “down a long” depending on which way you are travelling. The village, surrounding estate and all properties are owned by a family trust who carry out all repairs to ensure the heritage is preserved.

Due to the steepness of the cobbled road most goods are transported by either Donkey or wooden sled as shown  above. It’s hard to judge the steepness of the cobbles from a photo but judge the angle of the horizontal garden walls against the road and you get the idea of quite how steep this is.

We end with a view of a storm approaching the village and it’s harbour. As you can see fishing trips need to be scheduled around the tides as the harbour is only accessible to boats at high tide. This photo was taken from the viewing area, where wives and families would watch for the returning trawlers, such is the rugged nature of the coast; the ferocity of the weather and unpredictable tides that many boats did not make it home.

More about the history of this unique village can be found here