HelpHound

When we visit North Devon we have to visit Barnstaple! We really enjoy shopping there. It has an indoor shopping area called Green Lanes plus outdoor shopping and an indoor market. Visit the fudge shop just inside the indoor market to watch fudge being made - although this usually means you end up buying some but it is delicious!
There is a cinema and leisure centre in the area. There's also a large bus station where you can catch coaches to lots of places as well as local buses. It also has a train station to get you to Exeter and beyond. There are plenty of places to grab a bite to eat. One of the problems we found was the traffic but that will be helped by the new by pass; the other one was when we had an emegency in the middle of the night and couldn't find a petrol station that was open.

Barnstaple is quite a small town in North Devon. The town center has all of the main high street shops and also has a small indoor shopping centre called The Green Lanes. There is also an indoor market which is held every wednesday and saturday which has a wide variety of stores rangeing from antiques to pet accesseries. Running alongside the market there is butchers row which has several butchers, fish mongers and veg shops. Barnstaple has a good night life for a small town it has traditional old pubs such as the cork and bottle at the end of the high street and the 3 tons in the middle of the high street it also has quite a few clubs all within walking distance of each other. Both the bus station and train station are within walking distance of the town center. There are many nice beaches in the area such as saunton sands, croyde bay and woolacombe all rated in the top ten surfing resorts in the uk. The only bad thing i can say about Barnstaple is the traffic it can take up to 1hr in peak times to cross the town having said this they have just built a bypass to help solve this problem.

Barnstaple is really the capital of North Devon people of the neighbouring towns/villages such as Ilfracombe, lynton, braunton, combe martin and lots more travel to Barnstaple for there shopping, as barnstaple town centre is the biggest in the north devon area. There is a wide range of shops from surf wear to sportwear and from homeware to hardware. It also has a large number of local takeaways but also has the named franchises like wimpy and macdonals. Its also the home of north devon leisure centre and north devon college. Which is another reason why people travel to Barnstaple from all over north devon. Barnstaple is also the only place in north devon with a train station that takes you to exeter in an hour. There is a large number of schools and also the main hospital is located here. It has plenty of local amenities such as cinema, number of parks, go karting, bowling and laser quaser. There is also lots of trading estates for businesses such as roundswell and pottington estate. It also benefits from having two large supermarkets sainsburys and tesco and has the main link to the m5 motorway using the a361 link road.

I've lived just outside Barnstaple for three years now, so could be of some help. As far as nightclubs go, it's not the best, but there are lots of little bars and quite a few have live music, the Exeter Inn have bands there occasionally, and if you can get out to Braunton, the White Lion pub have open mic nights every week which are good. Lots of little restaurants and some new chain ones (Pizza Express & Prezzo), cafes, there's a cinema, a great leisure center and lots of gyms scattered around the place.

What else........ Croyde is a great place to go for drinks and thanks to the new bridge it is only about 10-15 mins away. Due to it's location there is a very strong surfing theme in all towns around this part of north Devon, with every other shop selling boards, wet suits and all the corresponding 'surf' brands. Thanks to the new bridge the town now doesn't come to a complete halt for the entire summer months due to tourists traveling through to get to nearby Woolacombe and Croyde holiday destinations.

As far as shopping goes, the high street's pretty standard but they do have lots of good surf shops and some funky little shops. And for us penny-stretchers out there, there are a few discount shops which provided you're careful, do have some fab offers in there, there's one right next to the leisure center.

We now have a Pizza Express and a Prezzo restaurant on the high Street which has done wonders for bringing this quaint little market town slightly more up to date, and with the new multi-million-pound college under way and the immense harbor developments in the paperwork process, it really looks like Barnstaple is on the up! Good news for us once city, now small town girls! Bring it on I say!

Matilda's recommendations:
*If you want a great but cheap lunch, go to Cafecino's on the high street next to the pannier market entrance, the food is all freshly cooked and really reasonable.
*If its' a nice bar you're looking for go to Clayton's, and remember the roof garden on a lovely sunny day or dry evening.
*If it's shopping you're interested in then try Rococo's- lovely clothes & accessories

There is also a market every week with some great bargains up for grabs and all the usual, yet charming additions of fresh fruit & veg, local eggs and fresh cut flowers.