Topsham for the day, by train

I enjoyed a brilliant day out in the attractive little Devon town of Topsham on Friday, with lots to write about, and lots to report on. In the end it was just me who made the journey, but as I’m fine with my own company, that wasn’t an issue. I was lucky with the weather as well, especially after the frosts, snow flurries and strong winds in the days preceding my trip, and was blessed by wall-to-wall sunshine, which certainly showed this charming settlement on the river Exe, at its best. The only fly in the ointment was being abandoned at Taunton, on the journey home, due to a broken-down train.

More on that later on, and for the time being, let’s concentrate on the positives. I had an early start to my journey, that was primarily down to me wishing to obtain the cheapest rail fare possible, which meant travelling outside of rush hour. So, leaving the comfort of home at just before 6am, in order to catch the 6.35am service to London Bridge, meant arriving at 10:35am. A little early for most of the town’s pubs, although as things turned out, my train was late pulling into Exeter, due to a “technical” issue, and it wasn’t until 11:15 that I finally arrived in Topsham. The problem with the train was a foretaste of what was to come later in the day, although I didn’t realise it at the time.

Trying to adopt a logical approach to Topsham’s pubs was skewed by a couple of points which revolved mainly around the old-fashioned opening hours of the Bridge Inn, the town’s time-warp, "heritage pub", and one of the prime reasons for my visit. This situation, when coupled with this unspoilt gem being some distance in the opposite direction from the main part of town, made attempts to arrange a logical tour of Topsham’s pubs rather difficult. Awkward, but not impossible, of course, and when combined with the unexpected, but very welcome, winter sunshine, it added to the delight of this attractive, east Devon town.

Topsham reminded me of Dartmouth – without the crowds, or more likely Salcombe, and there is something about the riverside setting of these south Devon towns that appeals perhaps to the inner seafarer that lies hidden deep within an island race, like us Brits. There is obviously money, in all these settlements, and whilst some might dismiss the townsfolk as all “pashminas and posh pooches”, visitors at least know what they are getting. From a personal perspective, I found Topsham to be an absolute delight, although given the unseasonably good weather, I was obviously seeing the town in its best light.

Readers might recall that my reasons for visiting the town in the first place were prompted by beer writer, Adrian Tierney-Jones’s, “A Pub For All Seasons”; a book that I read, earlier this year. The Bridge Inn is one of many pubs to feature in the book, but it becomes obvious upon reading it, that this characterful pub, on the edge of Topsham is one of the author’s favourite watering holes. Liking, what I had read, I knew I had to visit the place and experience it myself. You can read more about the Bridge in a later post but suffice to say that whilst differing from what I was expecting, it still ticked all the right boxes, and a few more besides.

Besides the Bridge, I visited the St Austell Brewery- owned Globe Inn, plus the Lighter – a Hall & Woodhouse owned pub, right on the Quayside. Somehow, I missed out on the Passage House Inn, which is tucked away, overlooking the estuary on the opposite edge of the town. This was despite having originally marked this Heavitree Brewery pub as well worth visiting - spoiler alert, Heavitree ceased brewing in 1970, and since then have been just a pub-owning company. 

If truth be known, it was my desire to get along to the Bridge Inn that led to the Passage House falling off my radar, although I’d also neglected to write it down on the checklist of pubs, locations, train times and other information I was carrying in the breast pocket of my shirt. With the benefit of that wonderful thing called “hindsight” I could easily have wandered back down into Topsham and grabbed a quick pint at the Passage House, before heading back up to the station for the train back to Exeter.

Despite this faux-pas, I still managed a pint back in Exeter, before my train home. I’d originally planned for a beer in the Exeter Brewery Taproom, which is just a short hop from Exeter St David’s station, before discovering that it didn’t open until 5pm. I had a couple of hours to kill before then (time to have visited the Passage House!), so having noticed a large sign for an equally large Wetherspoons outlet called the Imperial, I headed up the hill towards the pub.  This Grade II listed building began life as a private house, before becoming a hotel in 1923. Wetherspoons acquired the hotel in 1974, and then converted it into today’s cavernous and imposing pub.

It was Friday afternoon, and the Imperial was packed with a mainly student crowd, drawn from the neighbouring Exeter College, whose campus borders the grounds of the latter. I was reminded, to a certain extent, of my own student days, half a century ago, even though there were no “super pubs” in the mould of JDW back then.  The youngsters seemed happy to be celebrating the end of the week, and most likely the approaching end of the autumn term - are they still referred to as “Trimesters”? Despite the crowds there were still quite a few empty tables, so I grabbed one after first ordering a pint of Reel Ale from Teignworthy Brewery, who are based nearby, at Newton Abbot.

There would probably have been time for that quick pint at the Exeter Brewery Tap, but I’d run out of steam by then, so I wandered back down the hill and to the station. My train arrived on time and, unsurprisingly for a Friday evening, was packed. There were people (not all of them students), heading home for the weekend, or others possibly heading up to London for a short break in the capital. I had a reserved seat, so was fine, and settled down to enjoy the journey back to Paddington.  Unfortunately, things weren’t quite going to plan, and an announcement from the conductor, apologising for our relatively slow speed (I hadn’t really noticed), prepared us for the worst.

The train was running on just two of its five engines, and there was concern that even this might not be sustainable for the remainder of the journey. So, after stopping at Taunton, ostensibly to try and fix the fault, we were then asked to leave the train. With little in the way of instructions, as what to do next, I joined with a groups of passengers who’d been using their phones to monitor forthcoming train movements through Taunton station. A Cross-Country service, heading for Leeds would be stopping at Taunton soon, and would then be calling at Bristol. As there were regular GWR services from the latter city, heading toward the capital, I decided to join this group and squeezed onto that train.

“Squeezing” was the operative word, and the 45-minute ride brought back equally unpleasant memories of a similarly over-crowded Cross-Country rail journey I’d made whilst travelling to Macclesfield back in December 2023. When you’re packed in so tightly that you can hardly move, and you’re unable to remove your coat, or put down your bag, you start wondering how much longer until the train arrives at its next destination. Fortunately, the sense of humour of some of my fellow passengers, helped keep everyone going through what was an extremely unpleasant journey.

I escaped the cramped confines of the train at Bristol’s Temple Meads station, where I was able to empty my bladder, before finding the platform from where the next London-bound train would be leaving. Much to my amazement, there were still quite a few vacant seats on board. 

I don’t know how the other passengers on that ill-fated train from Exeter fared, but there had been a lot of talk about the increasing unreliability of the bi-modal train sets, used by GWR and a number of other train operating companies. These units are designed to run on both electrified and non- electrified rail tracks, which sounds good in principle, but perhaps not quite as good in practice.

I’ve dwelt on this issue longer than intended, and although uncomfortable, plus annoying, it didn’t detract from what overall, was an excellent day out. Earlier on Saturday, I submitted my “Delay – Repay” claim form to GWR and await to see the outcome of that. In the meantime, there’s more to come, including further details of the pubs I visited, including, of course, Topsham’s legendary Bridge Inn.