Short answer: Chagford is hard to reach without a car. There is no station, the nearest mainline stops are Exeter and Newton Abbot, and bus services onto the moor edge are limited. Once you are in the village everything is a minute from the square, which is the consolation.
Chagford is a Dartmoor village and the moor is where public transport gives up. There is no railway, there never really was one close by, and the buses that do run are infrequent and thin out badly at weekends and in winter. This is not a town you can casually day-trip to by train.
Exeter is the main hub, with three stations and services from London, Bristol and the north. Newton Abbot is the other mainline option to the south. From either you are looking at a bus or a taxi for the last leg, and the bus will take longer than the train did.
The village rewards you. Everything is a minute from the square — the pubs, the cafés, the shops. You genuinely do not need a car once you have arrived, which is the opposite of how it feels getting here.
Wistman's Wood, Becky Falls and Stone Lane Gardens are all drives. So is most of the high moor. If those are the reason for the trip, you need a car or a taxi arranged in advance — and agreeing a pick-up time matters here, because signal on the moor is poor and you may not be able to call for one.
Stay in the village rather than treating it as a day trip. Chagford works as a base you walk out from, with the moor on your doorstep and the pubs a minute away. As a car-free day trip from Exeter it is a lot of travelling for a small village.
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