Devon’s coastline and moors are famous, yet its hidden valleys offer a rare, tranquil beauty. Most people bypass these secret sanctuaries, overlooking the serene escape Devon provides.
Visitors often flock to Devon’s beaches, bustling ports, and celebrated cuisine, chasing obvious draws. Yet, by sticking to main roads and crowded car parks, they overlook Devon’s deeper character. To truly grasp it, venture off the beaten path into its secret valleys.
Before you continue, remember that Devon’s hidden valleys—deep, wooded, and alluring—await discovery. Some are so remote they’re accessible only by foot, with the sound of water as your guide. Pause before you drive on—uncover their sheltered magic firsthand.
With this in mind, it’s time to explore ten hidden valleys—each with its own story and unforgettable scenery. Here’s what you should know beforehand:
Quick Facts
- What this is: Ten overlooked or undervisited valleys across Devon, from Exmoor to Dartmoor to the South Hams
- Best Time to Visit: October to April. The light is clearer, the bracken has died back, and you’ll likely have these places almost to yourself.
- What to Bring: Good boots. Many of the paths are steep, rocky, or wet, and sometimes all three at once.
- Most routes allow dogs, but remember to keep them on a lead near livestock, which is common throughout the area. With these considerations in mind, let’s begin discovering the first valley:
1. Heddon Valley, North Devon (Exmoor)
📍 National Trust: Heddon Valley
Heddon Valley is Exmoor’s deepest, most dramatic valley, defined by ancient woodland and the winding River Heddon, which flows to the remote pebble beaches of Heddon’s Mouth.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The Hunters Inn, Heddon Valley, a Victorian Gothic inn rebuilt in 1897, sitting directly on the South West Coast Path in the heart of the valley. Ten en-suite rooms, a self-catering lodge, and proper food sourced from local producers. New management from 2025. Muddy boots are always welcome.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The South West Coast Path runs directly past the door. From here you can walk east to Lynmouth or west to Combe Martin on two of the finest stretches of coastal path in England.
2. The Teign Gorge, Dartmoor
📍 National Trust: Fingle Bridge
Many visitors to Castle Drogo enjoy the view but skip the gorge below, missing a special part of Dartmoor.
The Teign Gorge is a dramatic valley beneath Castle Drogo, with steep, densely wooded southern slopes, an open rocky northern ridge, and the River Teign running swiftly along the valley floor, carving through its narrow landscape.
Fingle Bridge is a Grade II listed early 17th-century bridge across the River Teign. The name may derive from the Old English word meaning ‘hold’ or ‘catch.’ It refers to the bountiful fish in the river. The earliest record of the name is from 1317. The Fingle Bridge Inn sits beside it. It is one of the more welcome sights in Devon after the walk down from Sharp Tor.
The classic circular walk from Fingle Bridge up to Castle Drogo and back along the river takes about two and a half hours. It’s one of the best valley walks in southern England, but many people miss it.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: Mill End Hotel, Sandy Park, near Chagford. A country house hotel on the banks of the Teign just above the gorge, with twenty rooms and good food. Ideal base for the Teign Gorge and the northern moors.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: Three Iron Age hillforts overlook the Teign Gorge. Cranbrook Castle sits above the south bank. Prestonbury Castle is immediately east of Fingle Bridge. Wooston Castle is a short walk further east. None has an information board. All are free and usually empty.
Continue your Dartmoor journey in one of its most atmospheric landscapes: The West Dart Valley and Wistman’s Wood.
The West Dart Valley is a secluded moorland valley defined by the winding West Dart River. It is lined by Wistman’s Wood, a high-altitude ancient oak woodland perched on the valley side, giving the area a distinctive, wild character.
The West Dart Valley runs north from Two Bridges through the high moor and offers peaceful beauty on Dartmoor. The river flows between scattered boulders, with open moorland above, and the area feels untouched. Most walkers just pass through on their way to other places.
Wistman’s Wood is the reason to go. It is one of Britain’s last remaining ancient temperate rainforests and one of three remote high-altitude oakwoods on Dartmoor. The name derives from the Devonshire dialect word ‘wisht,’ meaning ‘eerie’ or ‘uncanny.’ The wood lies at altitudes of 380 to 410 metres in the valley of the West Dart River near Two Bridges.
The oaks are stunted by altitude and thin soil, none reaching much more than fifteen feet, and their branches carry over a hundred species of lichen. The wood has inspired numerous artists, poets, and photographers. Wistman’s Wood and the folk tale of the Wild Hunt inspired the setting of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles after Doyle’s visit.
The Duchy of Cornwall owns the wood, and Natural England manages it to protect its fragile ecosystem. Visitors are asked to walk around the wood, not through it. Please follow this rule. The paths around the wood are clear, and the views into the canopy from outside are amazing.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: Two Bridges Hotel, Dartmoor. The closest accommodation to Wistman’s Wood is directly on the B3357. A coaching inn with rooms and a bar, used by walkers crossing the moor. The car park on site provides the starting point for the walk to the woods.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: In March 2025, work began on expanding Wistman’s Wood to double its current size by 2040, planting 450 locally sourced oak and rowan saplings across the valley. The project is run by the Duchy of Cornwall alongside Natural England and the Woodland Trust.
4. Lustleigh Cleave, East Dartmoor
📍 Dartmoor National Park: Lustleigh Cleave
A cleave is a Dartmoor term for a steep, wooded valley. Lustleigh Cleave features deep, tree-covered slopes, granite outcrops, and the River Bovey running rapidly through its narrow base.
Lustleigh Cleave is a steep valley above the River Bovey, known for its granite outcrops, ancient woodland, and sites like Hunter’s Tor, an Iron Age fort.
The views from the ridge along the top of the cleave, especially from Harton Chest looking down over the river and across to the moor, are some of the best in south-west England. The village of Lustleigh, below, is everything a Dartmoor village should be. The Cleave pub in the village is one of the oldest in Devon.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The Ring of Bells Inn, North Bovey.A 13th-century thatched pub with rooms in a village two miles from Lustleigh. One of the most atmospheric places to stay on the eastern moors.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: There is regeneration of temperate rainforest on Lustleigh Cleave following a reduction in grazing and swaling. The oaks on the valley sides are slowly recovering to something approaching their pre-medieval extent.
5. Tavy Cleave, West Dartmoor
📍 Visit Dartmoor: Tavy Cleave walk
Tavy Cleave is a distinctive open valley without trees, where the River Tavy flows between scattered granite boulders along a broad gorge, exposing open skies and the surrounding unwooded moorland.
Tavy Cleave is a rugged valley with no trees; the River Tavy runs through boulder-strewn, granite crags below wide, open moorland.
The route from Lanehead car park near Mary Tavy follows an old mining leat from the early 1800s, before plunging into the cleave. Once the ledge ends, the trail all but vanishes, forcing you to clamber among boulders beside the river. The terrain is rough, often wet, but undeniably striking. Part of the walk crosses the Dartmoor firing range—always check firing times before visiting.
- 🏡 Where to Stay:The Elephant’s Nest Inn, Horndon, Mary Tavy. A 16th-century pub in a remote hamlet on the edge of the moor, within a short drive of the Lanehead car park. Good ales, straightforward food, and a genuine welcome for muddy walkers.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The old Wheal Friendship Leat, which guided you into the cleave, was built in the early 1800s to carry water to a copper mine. The industry is long gone, but the leat still runs clean and clear, four and a half miles across the high moor.
Now, head to South Dartmoor for the Erme Valley and Piles Copse, where tranquillity and ancient woodlands meet riverside beauty.
The Erme Valley stands out for its remoteness and scenic mix of steep slopes, high-altitude Piles Copse oak woodland, and the River Erme winding between moss-covered rocks in a sheltered, timeless landscape.
The Erme is one of Dartmoor’s quieter rivers, flowing south from the high moor above Ivybridge to the sea at Erme Mouth near Modbury. The upper valley, remote and serene, invites those seeking landscapes rarely visited outside dedicated walking circles.
Home to one of Dartmoor’s rare high-altitude oak woodlands, the Erme Valley is carved by the River Erme on its way from Dartmoor’s south moor to the South Devon coast. Piles Copse lies on the east side of the river. Upstream to the north is the world’s longest stone row.
Piles Copse feels magical—a living relic of prehistory, hidden high on the wild moors. Ancient oaks twist among boulders under a moss- and lichen-rich canopy. It is also home to the world’s longest stone row, stretching two and a half miles and ending at the Erme Head stone circle. Even those who know of it seldom experience its solitude.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The Watermark Hotel, Ivybridge.A small hotel in the market town at the valley mouth, convenient for the Harford Moor Gate car park that gives access to the upper Erme Valley.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The Erme Stone Row was erected in the Bronze Age, probably around 2000 BC, and aligns with the midsummer sunset. Nobody knows exactly why it was built here, or why it needed to be so long.
7. Dewerstone Valley and the Plym, South-West Dartmoor
📍 National Trust: Dewerstone Wood
The DewerstonThe Dewerstone is a granite crag on the edge of the Plym Valley near Shaugh Prior, rising sharply above the river gorge. It’s one of the most atmospheric spots on Dartmoor, with ancient oak woodland on the valley sides and the sound of the river echoing off the rocks. Among the trees in the Plym Valley are the granite crags of Dewerstone Rock. This popular climbing location is named after Dewer, the devil himself in the guise of an unholy huntsman, said to lure lost travellers to the top of the highest crag, where they fall into the jaws of his pack of demonic wisht hounds waiting below.
The National Trust manages the woodland, and the paths are well maintained. The circular walk from Shaugh Bridge takes in the river, the old granite quarry tramway, the Dewerstone crags, and the open moorland above before dropping back through North Wood to the valley floor. The walk covers several landscapes over four miles.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The White Thorn Inn, Shaugh Prior.A village pub on the edge of the moor, a short drive from Shaugh Bridge car park. Simple rooms, local ales, and a good starting point for both the Plym Valley and the Dewerstone.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The Bronze Age burial site on the walk above the Shaugh Bridge is largely unmarked. The old china clay settling tanks, visible from the path below, remind us that this quiet valley was once an industrial landscape.
8. The Walkham Valley, West Dartmoor
📍 Dartmoor National Park: Walkham Valley
The Walkham rThe Walkham starts on the high moor near Princetown and flows southwest through a wooded valley to join the River Tavy above Tavistock. The middle part, between Merrivale and Horrabridge, is one of the most beautiful and least visited river valleys on the western moor. Valley is a spectacular wooded valley between Merrivale and Horrabridge. Many of Dartmoor’s most famous rivers rise on the north moor. The rivers Tavy, Taw, Teign, and Dart have carved spectacular gorges and valleys.
The valley road from Merrivale passes through the trees with the river below, and walking from almost any point along it is outstanding. Stone clapper bridges cross the Walkham at various points. The old tin mines in the higher reaches above Merrivale are slowly returning to moorland. Prehistoric remains on the high ground include stone rows, cairns, and a stone circle that few people visit.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The Bedford Hotel, Tavistock.A Georgian coaching inn in the historic stannary town at the valley mouth, with good rooms and a proper restaurant. Tavistock’s pannier market has been running for over nine hundred years and is worth an hour on a market day.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The stretch of the Walkham between Merrivale and the old Swell Tor quarry follows the route of an early nineteenth-century granite tramway, with stone sleepers still visible in places underfoot.
9. Belstone Cleave, North Dartmoor
📍 Dartmoor National Park: Belstone Cleave
Belstone sits on the northern edge of Dartmoor, with a pub, a church, and a great view south over the high ground. Below the village, the River Taw flows through a steep, wooded valley before leaving the national park and heading north through mid-Devon farmland toward Barnstaple. It follows a different course from most Dartmoor rivers, leaving the moor through the beautiful Belstone Cleave and heading to Barnstaple and the north coast. It is the one major Dartmoor river that flows north rather than south, and Belstone Cleave is where it exits the moor.
The walk from Belstone village down into the cleave and along the river is accessible, quiet, and fine. Skaigh Wood fills the valley sides with sessile oak. The National Trust’s Finch Foundry at Sticklepath, a remarkable water-powered tool forge from the early nineteenth century, is at the far end of the walk.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: The Tors Inn, Belstone.A small village pub with rooms, sitting at the edge of the moor on the walk down to the cleave. One of the most remote genuinely usable pubs in Devon.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: Finch Foundry at Sticklepath operated as a forge from 1814 to 1960, producing agricultural tools and mining equipment. It is now a National Trust property and one of the last surviving examples of a water-powered working forge in the country.
10. The Avon Valley, South Dartmoor
📍 South Dartmoor National Park
The River Avon rises in the blanket bog of Aune Head on the southern moor and runs ten miles to the sea at Bantham on the South Devon coast. Its upper valley, between Shipley Bridge and the Avon Dam reservoir, is one of the most peaceful and overlooked places on Dartmoor.
The Avon, also called the Aune, is a beautiful river. The southern moor has rivers that are less well-known than those in the west and east. The Avon, Erme, and Yealm each have their own charm and are just as much a part of Dartmoor as the Teign, Dart, or Tavy. The Shipley Bridge north to the Avon Dam is about three miles each way along a clear track beside the river. The reservoir at the top is simple and still, reflecting the open sky. Below it, the valley is narrower and wilder, with ancient oaks on the banks and dippers working the shallows. The whole route is outside the firing ranges and can be walked at any time.
The lower Avon Valley, below Aveton Gifford, becomes a tidal estuary, one of the quietest and most beautiful on the South Devon coast. It is navigable by small boat and largely unknown.
- 🏡 Where to Stay: Brent Mill Farm, South Brent. A small B&B close to the Shipley Bridge car park, popular with walkers using the Two Moors Way, which passes through the valley. South Brent itself is a market village with a pub and good access to the southern moor.
- 🕰️ Worth Knowing: The Avon Dam was built in 1957 to supply water to the South Hams. The valley that was flooded had been farmed for at least a thousand years before. Old field boundaries and remains of tin-streaming operations are still visible on the valley sides above the waterline.
Practical Tips
- Maps:The AllTrails App is very useful for exploring the moorland valleys. Don’t count on having a phone signal above 500 feet. Several of these valleys require fording the river at some point, including the Erme Valley and parts of Tavy Cleave. Do not attempt in spate after heavy rain.
- Firing ranges: Tavy Cleave and parts of the northern and western moors are within military training areas. Check the Dartmoor National Park website or call 0800 458 4868 before setting out to confirm the firing times.
- Parking: EverParking: Each valley on this list has a car park or parking area, but none are very big. Arrive early in summer, or park in the nearest village and walk. Spring and autumn are the best times for almost all these valleys. The bracken that closes in during July and August dies back in September, opening the views again. The rivers run best after October rain.
Devon’s valleys are more fragile than they might seem. The ancient woodlands at Wistman’s Wood and Piles Copse have lasted thousands of years, partly because they were hard to reach. Too many visitors can cause erosion on steep paths and harm the lichens and mosses that make these places special. Stick to marked paths where they exist. Only cross rivers where the path shows you should. Don’t light fires, and take all your rubbish with you. If you find a quiet, perfect spot, don’t share its exact location online. Some of Devon’s best places are better left peaceful.
Reader Q&A
Which of these is best for families with young children?
Heddon Valley and the Teign Gorge at Fingle Bridge both have good, clear paths, a pub at the end, and enough to keep children interested without serious scrambling.
Which is the most remote?
Tavy Cleave offers genuine moorland remoteness above the treeline. The Erme Valley is a close second.
Which has the best pub at the end?
The Fingle Bridge Inn in the Teign Gorge, with its garden on the riverbank below the 17th-century packhorse bridge, is one of the finest pub settings in Devon.
Are any of these suitable in winter?
All of them with the right kit. Heddon Valley and Lustleigh Cleave are especially good in winter when the oak woods are bare, and the light reaches deeper into the valley. Wistman’s Wood in frost is one of the stranger and more beautiful sights you can see in England.
Can you swim in any of these rivers?
Yes. Spitchwick on the Dart is the best-known wild swimming spot in Devon. The Erme and the Walkham have good pools in their lower reaches. The Teign Gorge has Salmon Leaps below Castle Drogo, though the current can run fast. Never swim alone and check water levels before entering.
A Note on What Devon Actually Is
Devon is the third largest county in England. It has a coastline on two separate seas. It contains two national parks and more protected landscapes than almost anywhere else in the country.
The valleys are where most of that landscape quietly lives. Nobody has put a visitor centre in Tavy Cleave. There are no brown signs for Piles Copse. The Walkham Valley does not appear in most tourist guides.
That is precisely what makes it worth visiting. You’ve probably driven past places like these without even realising it. The Hidden Valleys. Quiet rivers. Entire worlds are waiting just beyond the road. jDevon is full of these places, but most people never stop long enough to see what’s really there.e No crowds. No signs. Just unspoiled countryside that feels like stepping back in time. We’ve found 10 of the best hidden valleys in Devon that most people drive right past. Once you see them, you’ll wonder how you ever missed them.
