#torridge

The day was all contradictions — high winds tearing across the grass, yet the air heavy with heat. On Northam Burrows, the sheep kept grazing as if nothing had changed, steady against the restless sky.

The rock, baked and weathered, seemed to hold the memory of countless such days. Blackberries clung to their stems, some still green, others dark and ripe, the wind rattling the brambles but not dislodging the fruit.

A thistle stood defiant, brittle but unbowed, while my bicycle lay still on the parched ground, the wheels warm to the touch after the ride.

It’s in this kind of weather — harsh but alive — that the landscape reveals itself. The heat presses down, the wind pulls you forward, and every detail, from stone to berry, feels sharpened by the struggle.

Northam Burrows never repeats itself. Each walk here is a new poem written in sky, sea, and weather.

The Alwington tree at ALWINGTON, a parish in Bideford district, Devon; on the river Yeo, 4 miles SW by W of Bideford r. station. 

It contains the hamlets of Fairy-Cross, Ford, and Wood town; and its Post Town is Bideford.  

The Coffin family held the manor for nine centuries since the Conquest, and had a handsome residence on it called Portledge.