The Pub: The Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton
The Walk: Fingle Bridge, Teign Gorge & Castle Drogo, 5.8 miles
Some walks feel like you’ve stumbled upon the definitive day out — the one you’ll quietly recommend to friends with a knowing look. This is one of them.
Together, the walk and the pub form a combination that’s hard to beat. One shows you why Devon is beautiful; the other shows you why Devon is beloved.
It has everything: a thatched hilltop village, a plunge into one of Dartmoor’s most dramatic river gorges, a high path with Dartmoor views that can stop you mid‑stride, and a pub at its heart that embodies the best of rural community spirit.
The Drewe Arms is a place whose significance runs far deeper than “another village pub saved by locals.” Thanks to its prior, legendary landlady and its new community ownership, this is a pub of national significance. It has been crowned CAMRA’s first ever Heritage Pub of the Year and celebrated across the region.
It's one of Devon's oldest and unique village inns, and loved by all who visit.
About The Drewe Arms
Last visit: April 2026
From the outside The Drewe Arms is a handsome 17th‑century thatched inn sitting comfortably in the square at Drewsteignton. Inside, it’s something far more unusual.
For decades it was kept in another age by Mabel Mudge, Britain’s oldest active publican, who finally retired at the age of 99. Under her care the Drewe became a kind of living time capsule: no bar, no modern gloss, just beer drawn from the cask through a small hatch, low‑beamed rooms with built‑in benches and antique tables.
When the pub closed in 2022, it felt like the end of something irreplaceable. The interior is one of national significance — CAMRA has long regarded the public bar as one of the great pub rooms of Britain — and the thought of losing it was more than a local worry.
But Drewsteignton wasn’t prepared to let the story end there. A group of villagers launched a fundraising campaign and, in six astonishing weeks, raised over £550,000 to buy the pub outright. In March 2024, the Drewe Arms reopened, not under a brewery but under the stewardship of the community itself. And crucially, they didn’t modernise it out of recognition. Apart from a deep clean and a much‑needed kitchen refurb, the Drewe remains exactly what it has always been: a beautiful, slightly eccentric, utterly authentic village inn.
The revival has been recognised far beyond the parish boundary. The Drewe has become the first ever winner of CAMRA’s Heritage Pub of the Year — a new national award open to every pub on the National Inventory — and has also been named South West Rural Pub of the Year 2025.
Wanderlust described it as “Heaven in Devon”.
Walk in on a fine day and you may find people sitting outside in the square, pints in hand, basking in the sunshine. Step inside and it feels like walking into the home of an old friend: small rooms warmed by fireplaces, the soft clatter of glasses from the tap room, the quiet pleasure of being somewhere that has never needed to shout to be heard. There's no bar - you order your drink through the hatch, watch it drawn from the cask, and before long you’re in conversation with someone you’ve never met. Its joy is in its simplicity.
Today the Drewe Arms is once again the beating heart of the village.
The Drewe Arms is not simply a pub worth the walk. It’s a pub worth celebrating — a place where history, community and atmosphere come together so naturally that you wonder how close we came to losing it.
Pub Key Information
| WEBSITE | https://www.drewearms.org/ |
| ADDRESS | The Drewe Arms Community Pub, Drewesteignton, EX6 6QN |
| PHONE | 01647 281377 |
| WHAT3WORDS | ///grants.bulk.buckling |
| PARKING | Small pub car park to the side of the pub. Larger (still small!) community car park behind the church is signposted when approaching from Cheriton Bishop direction. |
| LOCATION | Due West of Exeter, off the A30 via Cheriton Bishop. Alternatively, off the A3124 between Mortenhampstead and Whiddon Down. |
| HANDY FOR | Route follows part of the Dartmoor Way/Two Moors Way. The route passes below Drago Castle, a National Trust property worth visiting. |
Walk Overview
From the village to the gorge, take the familiar waymarks of the Two Moors Way. The path descends into Rectory Wood, before the slope suddenly steepens on its way towards Piddledown Common & the Hunters Path. The path switches back to descend towards Fingle Bridge.
As you approach the bridge turn right keeping the river on your left shoulder as you head upstream. This stretch is pure Dartmoor theatre: moss‑slick boulders, oak roots like knotted rope.
At the footbridge turn right up the narrow lane, signposted towards Castle Drago.
Now on the Hunters Path again the whole world opens out. The Teign Gorge drops away to your right, the river now a silver thread far below, and above you the dark bulk of Castle Drogo sits exactly where a castle should sit.
Beyond the perfect ‘lookout’ tors, the path contours back through Piddledown Common, before a return to Rectory Wood and steps retraced back to The Drewe.
Walk Instructions: Choose what works for you
There are multiple ways to consume the route described below.
- Either follow the online instructions, or download and print a copy of the route.
- If you have the OS Maps app, you can follow a saved route directly in the App.
- Or download the GPX file for use on your chosen GPS-based navigation application.
Walk Information
| START/FINISH | The Drewe Arms, Drewsteignton, EX6 6QN. 01647 281377 |
| PARKING | Small pub car park to the side of the pub. Larger (still small!) community car park behind the church is signposted when approaching from Cheriton Bishop direction. |
| GRID REFERNCE | SX 736 908 |
| WHAT3WORDS | ///grants.bulk.buckling |
| DISTANCE/TIME | 5.8 miles / 9.3 km; approx 3 hours |
| ASCENT | 1115 feet / 340 metres |
| PATHS/TERRAIN | Short section of country lane, woodland paths, stony underfoot along river paths where lots of roots exposed too. Some steps, often steep. Some gates, all directions well signposted, plus NT info boards at Fingle Bridge. |
| DIFFICULTY | Moderate |
| PUBLIC TRANSPORT | Bus 359 runs several times a day between Exeter bus station and Moretonhampstead, calling at Drewsteignton and Chagford. |
| TOILETS | The Drewe Arms; Fingle Bridge Inn; Castle Drogo. |
| OTHER PUBS TO VISIT | The walk passes Fingle Bridge Inn, a waterside inn. At Moretonhampstead, the Union is a traditional pub; The Horse something altogether more upmarket. In Chagford, The Globe and the Three Crowns are very much worth visiting. |
Directions
- The centre of the tiny village of Drewsteignton is the church and the pub. As you walk away from The Drewe Arms, turn left along the road in the direction of Chagford, and follow it as it turns 90 degrees right on its way out of the village.
- Opposite the last village house, a stone marker announces the Two Moors Way, with finger markers directing towards Castle Drogo and the Hunters Path. Take this path down into woodland of Rectory Wood.
- At the footpath junction, turn left. (You’ll arrive back at this point from the other path on the return journey).
- Follow up through the conifers of Rectory Woods. At a stone marker, the path splits, offering a lower looping route to the left to Fingle Bridge. Our route continues uphill to the right, signposted Hunters Path.
- The path drops down slightly to round a bend before continuing uphill. Then a wonky footpath marker at a junction guides you to the right towards and through a gate.
- This is the Hunters Path which soon rises through oak woodland, the indication that we’re now on the slopes above the River Teign. This path continues uphill, and eventually you can spy another path beneath you.
- At the gate onto Piddledown Common, look for the ‘switch back’ path down on your left. This is the route to take you downhill now through the woods towards Fingle Bridge.
- The path drops onto a lane, which is the approach to Fingle Bridge. Plenty of parking here for those following a loop of the river through the gorge, or visiting the Fingle Bridge Inn.
- As you approach the bridge, we’re taking the path upriver on the right of the bridge, the Fisherman’s Path. (There’s a ‘You Are Here’ marker board on the other side of the bridge which gives you a sense of where you’ve been and where you’re heading!)
- This is a gorgeous section, but a bit tricky underfoot and a little bit of uphill. Take your time and enjoy it.
- At the suspension bridge, a marker guides you away from the river, towards Castle Drogo and the Hunters Path again. Take this to join a lane, gently uphill. This is the Two Moors Way route (and Dartmoor Way).
- You’ll come to another finger marker guiding you to the right, again towards Hunters Path & Castle Drogo, continuing on the Two Moors Way.
- This is an uphill that soon opens out to reveal awesome views as you rise above the gorge. The National Trust castle is above you to the left. You’ve walked a long way past the castle before a signpost to your left offering you the chance to visit.
- As you ascend, lookout points on tors provide super views, Sharp Tor being the best (250m elevation).
- Soon after, a path guides you left away from The Hunters Path, to start the return to Drewsteignton, the Two Moors Way taking you back towards Rectory Woods via Piddledown Common.
- As you leave the common a steep downhill takes you to that junction that we arrived at in #3 above. (I didn’t follow it, but a winding loop downhill avoids steps I believe).
- Emerge onto the lane back, turn right for the short back into the village.
Notes
Although this route only passes beneath Castle Drogo, it’s worth knowing what you’re walking under. Perched high above the Teign Gorge, Drogo is the last castle ever built in England, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for tea magnate Julius Drewe and constructed between 1911 and 1930.
It looks medieval from a distance, all granite battlements and fortress‑like presence, but step inside and you find a fascinating early‑20th‑century country house — part romantic fantasy, part modern family home. It was gifted to The National Trust in the 70’s.
Its position above the gorge is spectacular, with wide views across Dartmoor, and the National Trust has restored both the building and its gardens after years of weather‑related challenges.
If you have time before or after the walk, it’s an intriguing place to explore: a bold architectural experiment, beautifully set, and full of stories about ambition, landscape and the last gasp of English castle‑building.
The best pub walks are meant to be shared.
If you’ve followed this route, found a better path, got lost, uncovered a standout pint somewhere else, or simply have a story to tell, I’d be delighted to hear from you.
This site is as much about shared discoveries as it is about the walks themselves.
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