Lower Street leads down to Bayard's Cove, a short cobbled quay lined with well-restored eighteenth-century houses, where the Pilgrim Fathers touched en route to the New World.

A twenty-minute walk from here along the river takes you to Dartmouth Castle, one of two fortifications on opposite sides of the estuary. The site includes coastal defence works from the nineteenth century and from World War II, though the main interest is in the fifteenth-century castle, the first in England to be constructed specifically to withstand artillery. The castle was never actually tested in action, and consequently is excellently preserved. If you don't relish the return walk, you can take advantage of a ferry back to town, leaving roughly every fifteen minutes from Easter to October.

Continuing south along the coastal path brings you through the pretty hilltop village of Stoke Fleming to Blackpool Sands (45min from the castle), the best and most popular beach in the area. The unspoilt cove, flanked by steep, wooded cliffs, was the site of a battle in 1404 in which Devon archers repulsed a Breton invasion force sent to punish the privateers of Dartmouth for their raiding across the Channel.

From Dartmouth there are regular ferries across the river to Kingswear , terminus of the Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway . There are also various summer cruises from Dartmouth's quay up the River Dart to Totnes; this is the best way to see the river's deep creeks and the various houses overlooking the river, among them the Royal Naval College and Greenway House, birthplace of Walter Raleigh's three seafaring half-brothers, the Gilberts, and later rebuilt for Agatha Christie.