Hot Air Balloon Rides
in Tiverton

Enjoy Stunning Views Ballooning Over Tiverton

Tiverton sits at the meeting of the Exe and Lowman rivers, a market town with a long history of lace-making. In 1816, John Heathcoat founded a factory here that transformed lace from a cottage craft into an industry — a business that, despite fire and rebuilding, still operates today. Just outside the town, at Old Well Garden Centre in Uffculme, hot air balloons rise from the fields to show Devon in a way few ever see.

The launch begins quietly, the basket lifting clear as the town slips beneath you. From above, Tiverton Castle soon appears, its medieval walls tucked close to the rivers. The curves of the Exe and Lowman mark the landscape, their waters catching the light as they wind through farmland and wooded valleys.

To the north, the high ground of Exmoor National Park dominates the horizon. Its heathered moorland, deep combes and windswept plateaus reveal a wilder face of Devon, stretching all the way towards the Bristol Channel. To the south, flights sometimes carry you far enough to glimpse Dartmoor’s granite tors or the estuary at Exmouth, where the Exe meets the sea.

Each journey has its own rhythm. Some mornings the breeze keeps the balloon low, giving you a close look at villages, hedgerows and quiet lanes. On other days you may climb higher, where the view expands into a broad panorama — green fields, rising moors and, on the clearest days, a faint glimmer of the coast.

Flights from Tiverton never follow the same path twice. Some drift quietly along the valleys of the Exe and Lowman, others rise high enough to bring both Exmoor and Dartmoor into view. On certain mornings you might even catch the glint of the sea at Exmouth. However it plays out, lifting off from Tiverton is less about where you end up and more about the rare chance to see Devon unfold beneath you at its own pace.