The Musbury road, running away from Axminster, would be a pleasant lane—shut quite narrowly between curving hedges—but cars rush along it like bullets in a gun barrel. I sometimes see an elderly couple walking home this way, clutching their purchases from the market and hugging the hedge.

Ahead stands the bridge by which the A 35 highway flies over, but you don't want to go up the access road to this even busier rat run.

Not far past the bridge is a locality called Abbey Gate, because the lane on the right leads to where Newenham Abbey once stood, down near the river. The reason for the double bend in the Musbury road at this point is that here it was crossed, at a slanting angle, by the former railway from Axminster to Lyme. The railway bridge is gone, but you can discern on the left the end of the embankment that led to it, now covered with vegetation. (On the right, the new Axminster Carpet factory stands where the facing embankment used to be.)

The road is now open, with pleasant views across the floor of the Axe valley; the folds of hill along the farther side hide villages—Kilmington, Whitford, Colyton—and enclose the side-valley of the River Coly.

But after another half mile, you've had enough of the traffic. A modest sign indicates an inconspicuous turning on the left, and gratefully you slip into it.