Things to do in Devon

Appledore is one of the most attractive and most completely preserved maritime villages in Devon, a small port at the confluence of the Rivers Taw and Torridge near Bideford whose combination of narrow streets of Georgian and earlier cottages, the active shipyard, the maritime museum and the estuary setting creates one of the most authentic and most rewarding small coastal destinations in the West Country. The village retains the genuine character of a working maritime community in a way that more tourist-developed Devon coastal settlements have lost. The shipyard at Appledore, one of the last traditional shipbuilding yards in Britain, has constructed vessels on this site for centuries and continues to build and repair ships of considerable scale. The sight and sound of an active shipyard working with steel and tradition in a village of this intimate scale is one of the most distinctive features of Appledore and the most powerful evidence of the maritime heritage that the village museum documents in more conventional ways. The North Devon Maritime Museum in the village provides an excellent account of the seafaring history of the Taw-Torridge estuary, including the Victorian seamen who emigrated to Newfoundland and established the fishing communities of that coast. The estuary itself, with its shifting sandbanks, the bird life of the mudflats and the views across to Instow and the Taw Valley beyond, provides the beautiful setting for a village that rewards extended exploration.

Arlington Court near Barnstaple in north Devon is one of the most unusual and most rewarding National Trust properties in the southwest, a Regency house of modest exterior containing an extraordinary collection of objects assembled by Miss Rosalie Chichester across six decades of collecting until her death in 1949 and bequeathing the entire estate to the National Trust. The combination of the eclectic and personal character of the collection, which encompasses model ships, shells, pewter, costumes and an enormous array of objects with no common theme beyond Miss Chichester's enthusiastic acquisition, and the Victorian stables housing the national carriage collection creates a destination of remarkable individuality. The house reflects Miss Chichester's complete control of her environment across her long life, every room arranged according to her own taste and sense of order in a way that has been preserved by the National Trust as she left it. The experience of moving through rooms saturated with the accumulated objects of a single passionate collector is quite different from the polished presentation of great houses assembled for their architectural quality or art historical importance, and the personal character of Arlington Court is its greatest appeal. The Victorian stables of Arlington Court house the National Trust's carriage collection, over fifty vehicles from horse-drawn carriages and coaches to fire engines and estate vehicles, providing one of the most comprehensive collections of historic carriages on public display in Britain. The park and woodland walks provide excellent walking in the typical north Devon countryside.

Bantham Beach in the South Hams district of Devon is widely regarded as one of the finest beaches in the southwest of England, a long arc of golden sand at the mouth of the River Avon that combines excellent surf with beautiful scenery and a relatively undeveloped character that sets it apart from the more commercialised beaches of the Cornish coast nearby. The beach faces southwest across the open sea and receives Atlantic swell that produces reliable surf conditions, making it popular with surfers as well as families and swimmers who benefit from the beach's good natural shelter and lifeguard supervision during the summer season. The setting of Bantham is distinguished by the presence of the River Avon estuary at the northern end of the beach, where the river meets the sea in a complex of sandbanks, channels and tidal pools that make it one of the most naturally interesting beach environments in Devon. The ferry crossing to Bigbury-on-Sea on the opposite bank of the estuary is a seasonal service that adds a pleasantly adventurous element to access between the two sides of the river mouth, and the tidal island of Burgh Island is visible just offshore from the Bigbury side, its art deco hotel making it one of the most distinctive landmarks on this stretch of coast. The village of Bantham itself is small and low-key, with a car park, a surf shop and a pub that maintains the unpretentious character appropriate to a working beach community rather than a heavily developed resort. The walk along the South West Coast Path south from Bantham to Bolt Tail and beyond provides some of the finest coastal scenery in the South Hams, with the combination of headland, cove and open sea that characterises this outstanding stretch of the Devon coast. The South Hams is one of Devon's most beautiful and least spoiled areas, combining excellent beaches, the wooded estuary of the Salcombe inlet, the market towns of Kingsbridge and Totnes and the rolling pastoral countryside of the hinterland into one of the most varied and rewarding landscapes in the southwest.

Bedruthan Steps on the north Cornish coast near Padstow is one of the most dramatic and photographed coastal landscapes in Cornwall, a series of enormous sea stacks rising from the beach in the wide bay below the clifftops, their sheer faces and varied forms creating a scene of raw geological power that has made this one of the signature images of the Cornish coast. The stacks are the remnants of a headland progressively eroded by Atlantic wave action, the harder sections of rock resisting the sea longer than the surrounding material and surviving as isolated columns while the rest of the headland has been worn away. The clifftop viewpoint above Bedruthan, accessible from the National Trust car park, provides the classic view over the stacks and the beach below that appears on postcards and in travel guides. The beach itself is accessible by a steep staircase cut into the cliff face when conditions allow, but the tidal range on this exposed section of the north Cornish coast is considerable and the beach at high water is entirely submerged, making timing essential for anyone wishing to walk at beach level. The stacks have acquired individual names over the years, including Queen Bess, Samaritan Island and Diggory's Island, though the origin and reliability of these names in historical use is variable. The coastal scenery around Bedruthan is part of the extraordinary Heritage Coast that extends north toward Trevose Head and south toward Newquay, one of the most impressive stretches of the south-west coast path and an area where the full force of the Atlantic on an exposed coast can be experienced on all but the calmest days. The clifftop vegetation of maritime heath and grassland supports stonechats, skylarks and in spring the distinctive display of sea thrift that colours this stretch of Cornish cliff in pink every May and June. The National Trust café at the clifftop provides refreshments and the Trust manages the immediate site and the surrounding coastal farmland, maintaining both the visitor infrastructure and the ecological value of this important coastal landscape.

Bicton Park Gardens in East Devon near the village of East Budleigh is one of the finest and most varied historic gardens in the southwest of England, a large garden estate of approximately 63 acres that combines formal gardens of the eighteenth century with Victorian additions, a significant collection of tender and unusual plants and a variety of visitor attractions that make it one of the most comprehensive garden destinations in Devon. The garden was originally laid out in the early eighteenth century in the French formal tradition and subsequently modified, extended and enriched by each successive generation of the Rolle and Clinton families who owned the estate. The Italian Garden, the formal section nearest the house, represents the best-preserved element of the eighteenth-century layout, with its geometric pattern of beds, clipped hedges, fountains and ornamental statuary creating a French-influenced composition of considerable formality and elegance. The American Garden, created in the Victorian period to house the then-fashionable collection of North American ornamental trees and shrubs introduced to British gardens during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, contains mature specimens of exceptional size including one of the oldest surviving monkey puzzle trees in England. The Palm House at Bicton, a curved Regency glasshouse of great elegance, is one of the earliest surviving examples of the curved palm house design that preceded the great Victorian iron and glass conservatories and was the direct inspiration for Decimus Burton's Palm House at Kew Gardens. Its survival in original form at Bicton makes it one of the most historically significant garden buildings in Britain. The extensive woodland garden and pinetum contain a remarkable collection of conifer species, some of them of considerable rarity, and the overall diversity of the garden's plant collection reflects two centuries of enthusiastic and well-resourced plant collecting. A miniature railway, children's play areas and a garden centre add to the family visitor offer.

Blackpool Sands in Devon is one of the finest and most beautiful private beaches in Britain, a sheltered shingle and sand bay on the South Devon coast near Dartmouth that is owned and managed by the Newman family and maintained to an exceptionally high standard that makes it one of the most consistently enjoyable beach experiences in the southwest. The bay faces south into the English Channel and is sheltered by the wooded headlands on either side, the combination of protection from the prevailing wind and the clear blue water that results from the lack of river runoff in this section of the coast creating conditions reminiscent of the Mediterranean at its best. The beach is accessed via a steep road from the A379 and a pay and display car park above the beach, from which the bay is revealed in its full extent below. The colour of the water at Blackpool Sands, clear and blue-green in summer sunlight, is regularly described by visitors as the most un-English seawater they have encountered in Britain, and the consistency with which this comparison is made reflects the genuinely exceptional water quality of this protected south-facing bay. The safe bathing conditions, the lack of strong currents and the gradual depth increase make it particularly popular with families. The café and watersports hire facilities at the back of the beach are managed with the same care for quality that distinguishes the beach itself, with locally sourced food and good coffee providing a standard of beach catering considerably above the national norm. The wooded headlands above the beach are accessible on foot and provide excellent coastal walking with views over the bay and along the coast toward Dartmouth and Start Point. The South Devon coast in this area combines excellent beaches at Blackpool Sands, Slapton Sands and the Salcombe estuary with the historic port town of Dartmouth, the Dart Valley Railway and the walking routes of the South West Coast Path to create one of the most varied and rewarding sections of the southwest coast.

Boscastle is one of the most attractive and most historically interesting fishing villages on the north Cornish coast, a small harbour settlement tucked into the dramatic valley of the River Valency beneath the great clifftop of the Pentargon headland whose combination of the extraordinarily narrow harbour entrance, the whitewashed and slate-roofed cottages and the wooded valley walking provides one of the most complete small harbour experiences on the Cornish coast. The village was devastated by a catastrophic flash flood in August 2004 when the River Valency rose by nearly four metres and destroyed many buildings and vehicles, and the remarkable recovery and rebuilding since then has restored its character. The harbour at Boscastle is one of the most unusual on the Cornish coast, its entrance so narrow and so protected from the sea by the double dogleg of the approach channel that the harbour provides shelter from storms that would overwhelm a more conventional design. The Victorian jetty and the lime kilns on the quayside provide historical context for a harbour that was once busy with the coastal trade in coal, lime and the produce of the local farms. The blowhole near the harbour entrance produces dramatic jets of spray in rough sea conditions. The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in the village, the largest collection of witchcraft-related objects on public display in the world, provides an unexpected cultural dimension that has attracted considerable attention and visitor interest since the museum was established in the 1960s.

Brown Willy is the highest point in Cornwall at 420 metres, a moorland tor on Bodmin Moor that rises above the surrounding peat bog and rough grassland to provide the most elevated viewpoint on the peninsula. Despite its modest altitude by the standards of the Welsh or Scottish hills, Brown Willy has the quality of genuine upland terrain, the exposed granite summit rising from a plateau of waterlogged moorland that can be demanding to cross in wet conditions and that provides a genuine sense of wild country in the heart of the Cornish peninsula. The name Brown Willy derives from the Cornish Bronn Wennili, meaning swallow's hill or breast of swallows, a name that reflects the Celtic language origins of Cornish place names on the moor and the long human history of this upland landscape that extends from the Neolithic period through Bronze Age settlements to the medieval and early modern tin mining and farming communities that worked the moor until relatively recent times. The Bronze Age settlements on Bodmin Moor, including the remarkable village and field system at Rough Tor nearby, are some of the best-preserved in Britain. Rough Tor, which lies close to Brown Willy and is in some ways a more interesting summit, is a great rocky outcrop on the neighbouring hill that provides dramatic viewpoints over the surrounding moor and contains the traces of a Neolithic enclosure and Bronze Age cairns and hut circles that make it one of the most archaeological-rich upland areas in Cornwall. The two summits are usually walked together from the car park at Roughtor Farm, providing a circuit of approximately five kilometres across classic Cornish moorland. Bodmin Moor as a whole provides a very different experience of Cornwall from the coastal attractions for which the county is most famous, its dark, open landscape of granite tors and peat bog offering solitude and natural beauty of an austere, northern character that surprises many visitors to what they expect to be a purely coastal county.

The Bude Sea Pool is one of the largest and most spectacular tidal swimming pools in Britain, a natural rock enclosure on the Atlantic coast of Cornwall near the town of Bude that has been improved and maintained since the 1930s to create a seawater bathing facility of exceptional quality. The pool fills naturally with fresh seawater on each tidal cycle, replenishing the water completely and maintaining the clean, clear Atlantic water quality for which the Bude coast is renowned. At high water the pool merges almost completely with the sea beyond its walls, making it one of the most dramatically exposed coastal bathing environments in England. The pool covers approximately a hectare in area and is large enough for serious lap swimming as well as recreational bathing, a scale that makes it genuinely unusual among British sea pools. The combination of the clean Atlantic water, the dramatic coastal setting with the cliffs of Compass Point and the Bude Canal behind, and the generally reliable surf conditions visible on the beach just beyond the pool wall create a bathing environment that is both practically excellent and aesthetically thrilling. The pool is used year-round by local swimmers and open water swimmers who appreciate the predictability of pool-swimming with the natural water quality and temperature of the sea. Bude itself is a small town on the north Cornish coast that has been a modest seaside resort since the Victorian period, its main attraction being the combination of the sea pool, the excellent surf beaches of Bude Bay, the Bude Canal and the coastal walking available on either side of the town along the South West Coast Path. The Bude marshes behind the town provide a nature reserve of some ecological interest and the contrast between the wild Atlantic coast and the quieter canal and marsh landscape inland gives the town a varied character unusual for a small seaside resort. The Bude Sea Pool is free to use and is one of the genuine pleasures of a coastal character that is maintained and enjoyed by the local community as well as visitors.

Burgh Island is a small tidal island just off the south Devon coast near Bigbury-on-Sea, accessible on foot across the sand at low tide and by a unique sea tractor at high water, whose combination of dramatic coastal setting, art deco hotel and strong associations with Agatha Christie make it one of the most distinctive and atmospheric destinations on the southwest coast. The island rises from the sand to a modest summit crowned by the remains of a medieval huer's hut, from which the tuna and pilchard shoals were once spotted and the fishermen summoned, and the old Pilchard Inn dating from the fourteenth century provides refreshments with considerable historic atmosphere. The Burgh Island Hotel, built in the art deco style in 1929, is the island's most significant building and one of the finest surviving examples of art deco hotel architecture in Britain. The hotel was developed by Archibald Nettlefold as a venue for the glamorous society set of the 1920s and 1930s, and the original guest list included Noël Coward, the Duke of Windsor and Agatha Christie, whose visits to the island inspired two of her Hercule Poirot novels. Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None were both written drawing on the island's distinctive character, and the hotel has capitalised on this association by maintaining an interior that recreates the art deco ambiance of the original building with considerable authenticity. The sea tractor that ferries hotel guests and visitors between the mainland beach and the island at high tide is a unique vehicle, a raised platform on stilts driven by a tractor mechanism that allows it to cross the submerged causeway when the sand is covered. The visual spectacle of the sea tractor making its crossing, the hotel visible on the island behind, provides one of the more surreal images available on the Devon coast. The views from the island summit across Bigbury Bay toward Plymouth Sound and the Bolt Tail headland are excellent, and the combination of the hotel's character, the island setting and the Agatha Christie associations makes Burgh Island an entirely memorable destination.

Charlestown is one of the most perfectly preserved and most evocative small harbour towns in Cornwall, a Georgian planned port near St Austell that was built in the 1790s by the entrepreneur Charles Rashleigh to export the china clay of the St Austell area and import coal and lime for the local agricultural and industrial economy. The combination of the original Georgian harbour architecture, the lock gates, the china clay cellars and the dramatic sight of the tall-masted sailing vessels that are frequently moored in the harbour make it one of the most atmospheric small harbour experiences in the southwest. The harbour at Charlestown is one of the most frequently used film locations in Britain, its complete Georgian character and the absence of modern development within the harbour basin making it ideal for productions set in the age of sail. Poldark, Hornblower, Alice Through the Looking Glass and numerous other productions have used the harbour, and the sight of a nineteenth-century square-rigger moored in the lock basin against the backdrop of Georgian stone warehouses is one of the most frequently photographed scenes on the Cornish coast. The Shipwreck and Heritage Centre in the harbour area provides an excellent collection of material from the many vessels wrecked on the Cornish coast over the centuries, and the combination of the working harbour, the heritage centre and the beautiful setting above the sea makes Charlestown one of the most rewarding coastal heritage destinations in Cornwall.

Clovelly on the north Devon coast is the most dramatically picturesque fishing village in England, a settlement of whitewashed cottages cascading down an impossibly steep cobbled street to a small harbour below the great cliffs of the North Devon coast whose combination of the extraordinary topography, the complete absence of motor traffic and the genuinely historic character of the buildings creates one of the most visited and most consistently admired small coastal communities in Britain. The village is privately owned by the Asquiths of Clovelly and has been maintained in its historic character with exceptional care over several generations. The main street of Clovelly, the Up-along and Down-along as the villagers call it, descends approximately 120 metres from the clifftop to the harbour below in a series of cobbled steps and narrow paths too steep for wheeled vehicles. Goods are carried by sledge to the houses below and donkeys traditionally helped with the heavier loads, a few still being kept in the village as much for their role in the visitor experience as for practical necessity. The experience of walking down this street, with the whitewashed cottages on either side and the glimpse of the harbour and the sea below, is unlike any other in England. The harbour at the bottom, with its medieval quay, the fishing boats and the atmosphere of an entirely authentic working fishing community, provides the destination that makes the descent worthwhile. The herring fishing that once sustained the village is commemorated each November in the Clovelly Herring Festival.

Cotehele in the Tamar Valley near Saltash is one of the most important and most atmospherically preserved medieval manor houses in England, a house built primarily in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that has survived largely without major alteration since the seventeenth century in a state of completeness unique among English medieval domestic buildings. The National Trust manages Cotehele, whose combination of the medieval great hall, the original furniture and textiles and the extraordinary series of tapestries that furnish the rooms creates one of the most genuine encounters with medieval domestic life available at any English country house. The house was built by Sir Richard Edgcumbe following his support for Henry Tudor's cause at Bosworth, and the subsequent prosperity of the family allowed substantial building and furnishing activity in the decades that followed. The crucial factor in Cotehele's survival is that the Edgcumbe family moved their principal residence to Mount Edgcumbe near Plymouth in the seventeenth century, leaving Cotehele as an occasional retreat that was never subjected to the modernisation that would have removed its medieval character. The tapestries and original furniture that furnish the rooms have never been moved. The Cotehele Quay on the Tamar below the house was once a busy commercial port and still houses a National Maritime Museum outstation with the restored Tamar barge Shamrock. The Tamar Valley gardens, the medieval dovecote and the mill complete an estate of exceptional variety and historical depth.

Crackington Haven on the north Cornish coast is one of the finest small coves in Cornwall, a sheltered beach of dark sand and rock backed by the dramatic Carboniferous rock strata of the surrounding cliffs whose combination of the beach, the coastal walking and the extraordinary geological formations visible in the cliff faces creates one of the most geologically distinctive beach destinations on the north Cornish coast. The cliff geology here is among the most complex and most visually dramatic on the entire Cornish coast, the ancient Carboniferous rocks folded and contorted into spectacular patterns. The cliffs at Crackington Haven expose a sequence of alternating shales and sandstones known as the Crackington Formation, a geological unit that takes its name from this specific location and represents the defining rock type of the high coastal cliffs of north Cornwall and north Devon. The folding and faulting of this formation, clearly visible in the cliff faces on either side of the cove, provides one of the most instructive and most accessible examples of complex geological deformation in the southwest and the dramatic visual patterns of the folded strata have made Crackington a destination for geology students and enthusiasts. The coastal path from Crackington Haven traverses some of the finest cliff scenery on the north Cornish coast, the High Cliff to the south being the highest sea cliff in Cornwall at approximately 223 metres and the views along the coast in both directions being exceptional. The beach itself provides good bathing in summer and excellent rock pooling at low tide.

Croyde Bay on the north Devon coast is one of the finest surfing beaches in England, a kilometre of Atlantic-facing sand between the headlands of Baggy Point and Saunton Down whose consistent left-hand break, the clean Atlantic water and the attractive surf village of Croyde behind the dunes have made it the most celebrated surf destination on the north Devon coast. The combination of the beach quality, the surf culture of the village and the beautiful north Devon landscape creates a destination of considerable appeal for both surfers and non-surfing visitors. The surf at Croyde is among the most consistent on the south coast of England, the northwest-facing aspect and the offshore sandbanks producing waves of good quality suitable for experienced surfers while the beach break provides opportunities for beginners to learn in supervised conditions from the several surf schools operating on the beach. The autumn and winter swells provide the most powerful conditions and attract the most experienced surfers seeking challenging waves. The village of Croyde behind the dunes has developed a surf culture character that provides cafes, surf shops, pubs and accommodation of good quality in a setting that retains genuine village character despite the heavy summer visitor traffic. The coastal walking from Baggy Point to Saunton Sands to the south provides excellent cliff and dune scenery in one of the finest sections of the north Devon coast.