The bar top in the Bridford Inn came from a demolished chemist's shop in Exeter, and is said to be the widest bar in the country. The ceiling beams above it are ship timbers from the Appledore boatyard, salvaged during construction of the Mayflower replica. None of this was planned. The building was a 17th-century Devon farmhouse, then two cottages, and only became the village pub in the late 1960s.
Dean and Lyn Staniforth run it with their son Sam. It is a free-house with an inglenook fireplace, a bread oven still set into the stonework, and exposed oak beams. The village shop lives inside it, open during all pub hours, which in a place this size is a sensible arrangement.
The food does most of the talking. The Sunday roasts have been called the best in Devon often enough that people repeat it, and the pub made the Telegraph's list of top places for Sunday lunch. Ham, egg and chips is a menu staple. Home-made desserts come with Orange Elephant ice-creams and sorbets. One TripAdvisor reviewer put it as "Restaurant quality grub with pub price!!" Lunch runs Wednesday to Saturday, dinner Wednesday to Saturday evening, roasts on Sunday; Monday and Tuesday the kitchen is dark.
There are four handpumps, with Dartmoor Jail Ale as the regular and rotating guests alongside. The cider and scrumpy bar carries fifteen and more from Devon and Somerset, which is how it came to be CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year in 2019. The garden faces south, with picnic tables and a long view over the Teign Valley below.
The church sits at the top of a steep flight of steps in the middle of the village. St Thomas à Becket is Grade I listed, dedicated in 1259, and holds a rood screen that is one of the greatest works of art in Devon. The screen's saints and musicians are carved rather than painted, some of them playing zinks, and it was probably put up early in Henry VIII's reign under the vicar Walter Southcote. Look up and there's a wagon roof with carved bosses, including a Three Hares boss. The December carol service is lit largely by candlelight.
You are on the eastern edge of Dartmoor here, above 1,100 feet in places, with ancient oak woodland and the River Teign in the valley below. The Blackingstone Rock loop is about four and a half miles to a granite tor with steps cut to its summit. Bridford Wood, National Trust oak alongside the Teign, makes a shorter circuit. The reservoirs at Kennick, Trenchford and Tottiford are flat and easy.
The Bridford Barytes Mine worked below the village until 1958, producing over 400,000 tons of barium sulphate, most of it carried out by rail to Exeter until the line closed. The Domesday surveyors found fifty-nine households here in 1086 and called the place Brideforda, the brides' ford.
Exeter is about nine miles off the B3212, with a bus running in. The post office opens on Thursdays, two hours in the village hall, and there is a fête every July.