Walk - Babbacombe & Oddicombe

2.2 miles (3.6 km)

Walls Hill Road carpark, Babbacombe -TQ1 3LZ Walls Hill Road carpark, Babbacombe

Moderate -

A short but fairly strenuous walk on one of Britain's highest cliff-top promenades, but you can avoid the long and steep downhill section by riding down on the famous funicular railway, built in 1926 and still carrying a quarter of a million passengers a year! This is a very important area geologically and it is rich in wildlife, with 35 nationally scarce species to be found in a grassland habitat found nowhere else in the world. Children will be fascinated by the cliff railway, and by the different kinds of rock and the way they have been overturned.

Checked by SWCPA Volunteer Tino Savvas - June 2019

There are a range of wonderful places to lay your head near the Coast Path for a well-earned sleep. From large and luxurious hotels, to small and personable B&B's, as well as self-catering options and campsites. The businesses that support the Path, where you've chosen to visit, are listed here.

The Cary Arms Hotel & Spa

The Cary Arms & Spa “Inn on the Beach” exudes charm, style and comfort of a boutique hotel. Seaside English Heritage dining with chic rooms include dog-friendly accommodation.

Sea Breeze Guest House

We are a Bed and Breakfast with views across Babbacombe Downs and the Jurassic coast. We offer large ensuite rooms, fabulous breakfasts and refreshments on our terrace.

Coastguard Cottage

Small, cosy cottage accommodatioon with all rooms en-suite and with wifi. Close to many amenities. A substantial breakfast is provided.

Rose Court Holiday Apartments

Rose Court are self contained holiday apartments with free Parking set in a delightful Victorian villa with glorious gardens, 5 minutes from the South West Coastal Path.

Kingsholm Guesthouse

A beautiful Edwardian house in Torquay. About 200m to restaurants and 300m to harbour. No. 22 bus stop, which runs from Dawlish Warren to Paignton just a few meters away

The Cimon

The Cimon, a gorgeous Victorian villa, a few minutes walk from the Coastal Path, restaurants and attractions. Muddy boots welcome. Seasonal outdoor heated pool & bar.

The Torcroft

The Torcroft is an award winning elegant Victorian villa, fully refurbished to a high standard, minutes from Torquay seafront & harbour.

Haytor Hotel

Elegant and welcoming Victorian villa, offering delicious breakfasts, a peaceful night's sleep. 4 mins walks from harbour and beach.

The Osborne Apartments

Luxury self catering apartments nestled in the heart of the English Riviera with stunning sea views.

The Cleveland Bed and Breakfast

Consistently rated one of the 'best bed & breakfasts' in Torquay, The Cleveland is ideally located for access to the South West Coast Path and all local amenities.

Garway Lodge Guest House

Enjoy a 4 Star Award-Winning guest house bed & breakfast. Situated in Torquay. Early Breakfasts are available upon request.

The 25 Boutique B&B

Funky 5-star adult-only boutique B&B, (twice named “Best B&B in the World”) located in easy walking distance of the coast path, restaurants, tourist attractions & harbour

Halekulani Devon

Halekulani Devon Homestay for discerning guests with spa, private use heated pool, tennis and pristine views.

The Hen's Dens at Orchard Organic Farm

Camping at The Hen's Dens at Orchard Organic Farm

The Miggi

Vegan, LGBTQ+ friendly, book-themed guesthouse, just 100m from Coast Path. Dogs very welcome. Cruelty-free, plastic-free toiletries. Big beautiful breakfasts included!

Mercure Paignton

Experience the true English Riviera at Mercure Paignton Hotel, a seaside haven on Paignton seafront, your gateway to Devon's stunning coast and countryside. Enjoy sea-view rooms and unforgettable experiences.

Devon House Guest House

A lovely period Guesthouse with victorian features. 5 minutes walk to the Coast Path. Single night stays welcome.

Roadtrip Tavern

I have a loft space that is divided into 4 separate pods and is open plan like a dormitory and is specifically for SWCP Walkers.

Earlston House Hotel

A 9 room dog friendly B&B with excellent reviews, super views, very close to the South West Coast Path and a large hot tub to relax in.

Longmeadow Farm Campsite & Self Catering Accommodation

Where the coast meets the country. Relaxed camping on a family farm, two shepherd's huts and three self catering cottages. Ideal for those exploring the Coast Path.

Farthings B&B

Located on the edge of the beautiful village of Shaldon on the South Devon coast. Built in 1797 and still retaining its original character Free wi-fi. Hearty breakfasts

Deckchair And Dreams

Self catering accommodation sleeping up to 6 people

The Thornhill

A warm welcome awaits you in our elegant Georgian building, situated on the seafront, comprising 10 comfortable well-appointed bedrooms, each furnished with flat-screen TV.

You'll be spoilt for choice for where to eat and drink along the Path. With lots of local seasonal food on offer, fresh from the farm, field and waters. Try our local ales, ciders, wines and spirits, increasing in variety by the year, as you sit in a cosy pub, fine dining restaurant or chilled café on the beach. The businesses that support the Path, where you've chosen to visit, are listed here.

Three Degrees West

Three Degrees West is a daytime cafe & takeaway on the stunning Oddicombe Beach in Babbacombe on the outskirts of Torquay. Inside & outside dining right beside the sea.

Cafe Rio SUP & Kayak Hire

Our refurbished beach café, offers a great range of local fresh food, luxury ice cream, barista coffees, teas, cold drinks, cakes & snacks, perfect for breakfast or lunch

Harbour Light

Light-filled, rustic tavern with a terrace offering bay views, plus a menu of pub classics.

Cafe ODE @ Ness Cove

Sustainable cafe located at Ness Cove. Family friendly food that doesn't cost the earth.

What is on your list of things to do when you visit the Path? From walking companies, to help you tailor your visit, with itineraries and experts to enhance your visit, to baggage transfer companies and visitor attractions there are lots to people and places to help you decide what you'd like to do. The businesses that support the Path, where you've chosen to visit, are listed here.

English Riviera Tourist Information Centre

Find all the information you need about accommodation, things to do and places to go to enjoy your visit to the English Riviera.

Interactive Elevation

Route Description

  1. From the Walls Hill Road car park, behind the newly refurbished Route 16 pub, walk along Babbacombe Downs Road to the Downs.

At 90 metres above sea level, this is one of Britain's highest cliff-top promenades, and it gives spectacular views in both directions. Looking east on a clear day you can see the Dorset coast beyond East Devon, some 30 miles away, its white limestone cliffs glimmering in the sun in sharp contrast to the rich red of the older sandstone cliffs closer to hand in Tor Bay. 

  1. Walk to the end of the Downs, just past the statue of Lady Mount Temple and follow the road down to Oddicombe Beach (or take the cliff railway).

Babbacombe Cliffs are a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), for their rock formations. From Oddicombe Beach you can see how 'faulting' caused by earth movements has resulted in a section of red rock dropping to a lower level than the white limestone beside it, at the same time steeply tilting the red rock. This rock is a 'breccia', a kind of sandstone formed in a desert environment when flash flooding caused torrents of water to sweep stones and rocks through dry valleys to an open plain. Over time these fragments of younger limestone became embedded in the layers of red sand, and the whole was compressed to form a red sandstone studded with angular pieces of limestone, known as breccia.

Elsewhere in the cliffs, earth movements during what is known as the Variscan mountain-building period turned some of the rocks upside down, and near the cliff railway, the dark mudstones and shales at the bottom are actually younger than the limestones at the top of the cliff!

On the hillside beyond the cliff railway and above the beach, a substantial portion of the cliffs broke away originally in February 2010 (since which more has broken away). The unfortunate owners of a house at the top saw their house disappear in the resultant landslide.

The idea of a cliff railway here was first suggested as long ago as 1890 by publisher and MP Sir George Newnes (see the Hollerday Hill Walk in North Devon), although he failed to gain permission to proceed, and it was not until 1923 that the project was revived, when the Torquay Tramway Company announced its intention to build a lift to and from Oddicombe Beach. The engineer consulted by Torquay Corporation consulted was George Marks, who had worked with Newnes on a number of funicular railways in the 1890s, including installations at Bristol Clifton, Bridgnorth, Aberystwyth and Lynmouth, Newnes's adopted hometown, where today the cliff railway is the only one in Britain to be powered entirely by water. Work started at Oddicombe in December 1924, and the railway was completed in 1926, at a construction cost of £15,648.

Take a look at the walls of the building at the base of the cliff railway. The blocks are of the red breccia, laid down in the Permian period and if you look carefully, it is possible to see oval marks in the limestone fragments, evidence of tiny corals in the warm shallow seas where the limestone was laid down before it was broken up and swept into the sandstone.

  1. Turn right and follow the sea along the Coast Path beside the shoreline as it travels towards Babbacombe Beach.

The dark rock in the steep cliffs to your right as you cross the bridge is shale, a soft sedimentary rock formed in brittle layers from consolidated mud and clay. If you look carefully it is possible to see 'goniatites' in it: curled shell fossils that are the ancestors of the famous Jurassic age ammonites. Shale is impermeable, meaning that water cannot pass through; while the limestone above it is permeable. This results in a spring line, where the surface water has passed through the limestone but cannot go through the rock below it. If you drop down the steps to the left by the woods, before the bridge, you will see a series of small waterfalls tumbling down the cliff as this water falls to the shoreline.

On the site of the car park behind Babbacombe Quay, there was once a house where one of Queen Victoria's ladies in waiting lived. The tragic story of the murder of Elizabeth Whitehead's daughter, Emma Keyse, made Babbacombe nationally famous, when Elizabeth's manservant, John 'Babbacombe' Lee was charged with her murder. Condemned to death by hanging, three times the trapdoor failed to open when the lever was thrown, and in accordance with the law of the time, Lee's sentence was changed to one of life imprisonment. The evidence against Lee was circumstantial and very flimsy, and throughout his life, he continued to plead his innocence. In 1971 the folk group Fairport Convention released a folk/rock opera, 'Babbacombe Lee', telling the tale.

  1. Continue along the Coast Path as it climbs up into the woodland behind the Cary Arms, emerging on the open grassland of Walls Hill.

Walls Hill is also an SSSI, for its rocks and flora. Several rare plant species are found here, including the white rock rose, which loves limestone, and the rich variety of vegetation encourages butterflies like the beautifully ornamented marbled white. The grassland has benefited from a three-year project led by the Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust, an independent charity founded to protect Torbay's key wildlife and heritage areas (see the Maidencombe Walk). The Trust's strategy of removing scrub and other invasive species is protecting one of the UK's most fragile and precious habitats, 22 hectares of squill-spurge fescue grasslands, found nowhere else on earth

Archaeologists have found evidence of human activity here dating back to prehistoric times when a Celtic hillfort took advantage of the defensive properties of the cliffs and the panoramic views of the bay to protect its Iron Age inhabitants against hostile tribes.

  1. Stay with the Coast Path to the far end of Walls Hill, where you have good views down over Anstey's Cove.

Note the high limestone cliffs on your left, with Long Quarry Point at the bottom of them. The limestone was much quarried all around the coastline here and was used in the construction of many of the local buildings. The stone would have been taken away by boat.

The fissures in the cliffs to your right were caused in the rock by earth movements and subsequently enlarged by chemical weathering, when rainwater dissolved the rock, being slightly acidic. Here blocks of limestone have become detached and fallen into the sea, leading to Redgate Beach, below, being closed because of the danger of rockfalls.

  1. Turn back towards Babbacombe and follow the path along the edge of Walls Hill but bearing left past the cricket pavilion to return to the car park at the start of the walk.
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