Bovey Tracey: Culture, Crafts and Walking Trails

When looking for a hotel in Bovey Tracey, it helps to first decide what you want to focus on during your stay: contemporary crafts, the town’s history or riverside walks. The attractions and trails offer different ways to plan your time in the area.

Crafts and places to visit

MAKE Southwest is a venue for contemporary crafts and design. It is located in Bovey Tracey on the edge of Dartmoor. House of Marbles is a visitor attraction in Bovey Tracey and includes four museums covering games, glass, ceramics and marbles. Interactive features include marble runs, an in-house embossing machine and fairground mirrors. Teign Valley Glass is a working glass factory with a viewing platform. MAKE Southwest and House of Marbles offer different experiences: MAKE Southwest focuses on contemporary design and crafts, while House of Marbles brings together several museum themes with interactive features.

Local history at the Heritage Centre

Bovey Tracey Heritage Centre preserves archives, photographs and artefacts documenting life in Bovey Tracey—from the town’s medieval origins to the present day. Changing exhibitions cover topics including the pottery industry, the granite tramway, local mining, agriculture and the town’s railways. The site also contains the remains of a kiln of international significance and a restored GWR brake van. There is an activity area for children.

Specific historical dates help bring the town’s development to life. In 1260, Henry de Tracey received a charter permitting a weekly market and an annual fair in Bovey Tracey. The town’s pottery industry was established in the 1750s. Riverside Mill was built as a stable block in 1850, when the building belonged to John Divett, the owner of Bovey Pottery. Cromwell’s Arch is the only surviving remnant of a monastery that was demolished in 1822. Together, these topics span market history and crafts as well as architectural and industrial history.

Walks and trails

The River Bovey flows through Bovey Tracey. Mill Marsh Park has riverside walking trails, a play area and space for picnics. Nearby Parke Estate offers trails through woodland and pasture, as well as along the riverbank. You can reach the estate on foot from the centre of Bovey Tracey by following the riverbank. This gives you a choice of walks in the park and routes through the countryside of the nearby estate.

The Stover Trail offers a different way to find your bearings: it connects Newton Abbot with Bovey Tracey and continues via the Wray Valley Trail towards Dartmoor. While the trails in Parke Estate and Mill Marsh Park are described as walks, the trail connection passes through several places along its route. This distinction can help you choose between a walk and a route connecting multiple destinations.

Practical information and dates

Bovey Tracey Information Centre is next to the library in Riverside Community Centre, just off the Station Road car park by the river bridge. It provides visitor information about attractions, activities, walks, cycling, maps and local transport.

Bovey Tracey Craft Festival takes place every year in June; dates may change. If you are planning your stay around the festival, check the exact date before travelling.

Discover more destinations: Chulmleigh, Meavy, Plymtree, Swimbridge, Lympstone, Buckfastleigh, Ilfracombe, Tawstock

For the wider travel overview: Devon.