I was born just a stone’s throw away from Canonteign Falls in the Teign Valley and, like most things right on my doorstep, it has been years since I have visited the ever moving image of natural beauty. The current owners, the Baylis family, asked me if I would like to refresh myself with the steep climb to the top..
. some thirty years after I last did it. How could I turn it down, so I started the trek via the path through the Bluebells and Wild Garlic with Amy Greenman, the CEO and Marketing Director.
‘Our first waterfall ‘Clampitt Falls’ was created by the old industry on the estate’ said Amy only a matter of a few yards into the journey. ‘It would have been an original waterfall but the dam at the top gives it extra height and was built for Viscount Exmouth in the 1830’s. It comes from a header pond and was used to power machinery for the timber industry on the land.
It was named after the brothers who built it...
one was particularly eccentric; he had a medical practice in Pau in France and used to travel there and back by horse.’ Good start, I like an eccentric. The Clampitt Falls are beautiful, and you may like to call it a day there if you do not fancy the climb to the big one.
The main Lady Exmouth Falls was still shrouded in the early vivid green growth of the tree canopy. I could just catch a glimpse of the cascade, so I decided to press on. ‘In the 1800’s there was a lot of mining on the estate for lead and silver but due to cheap imports, that.