Missing dog search in Ilfracombe

Ilfracombe is squeezed onto very steep ground between Hillsborough, rising immediately east of the harbour, and the high cliffs around it, and both of those hills are open, walkable ground that a search checks early, precisely because they sit so close to the town centre and to the harbourside streets where a dog is most likely to have started from. Capstone Hill, right by the seafront, is much the same, open and quick to clear from the air even though it would be a particularly steep, awkward climb on foot.

This is full north-coast Atlantic exposure, gales and salt with nothing between the town and open ocean, and that is checked plainly before any flight is promised. Conditions here can close a search down when a more sheltered town, even one only a few miles inland, is still perfectly flyable, and that difference gets explained on the phone rather than discovered on site.

The steep Victorian terraces climbing the hillside were mostly built as hotels and resort housing, tall and tightly packed, and a dog moving through this part of town has a really awkward warren of steps, yards and narrow lanes to work through before it reaches anything approaching open ground, which is closer-in, slower work than the open hills either side.

The Victorian resort terraces and hotels climbing Ilfracombe's hillside were built as guesthouses and hotels as much as homes, and they carry fire escapes, back yards and service alleys that a private house would not, all worth checking on foot before assuming a dog has made it out onto open ground. The harbourside cottages lower down are tighter still, packed close with small yards opening straight onto narrow lanes.

The post-war housing on the higher slopes above the old town is a more conventional layout, with proper gardens, and a dog loose from one of those addresses is checked in the usual street-by-street way before the search considers Hillsborough or Capstone Hill covered above. Barnstaple, South Molton and Bideford are the nearest towns to widen towards from here.

Tunnels Beaches, cut through the cliffs by hand in the nineteenth century, and the harbour itself are useful landmarks close to the oldest, most tightly packed part of town, worth checking early precisely because the ground there is so enclosed. Once the harbourside and the immediate hillside terraces have been ruled out, the postcode area, EX34, is checked against airspace before the aircraft commits to the more open hills.