Hot tub, gardens and grounds
At Hillcrest Manor, the memory reel plays in your head before you ever see it on video. Get your camera ready to catch your kids chasing chickens around the six acres of woodland and the Italianate gardens. Watch them make pals of the pigs and get giddy with the goats. Pack them off to the pirate play area in the woods.
Share a Chablis in the sunshine on the terrace. Head down to the Nook to unwind in the bubbling hot tub. Feed the barbie with beef and break out a beer. Throw on a cardie at night and chew the fat on the private deck. Smash a ball around the shared tennis court. Repair to the parklands for a Pimm’s.
Living spaces
Pick from four properties that all marry traditional elegance with modern comforts. Mullioned windows, high ceilings, feature fireplaces and panelled walls sit alongside superfast fibre-optic broadband, Bluetooth music and flatscreen TVs. Yet traditionalists can still bury their heads in a book and light a log fire.
Keep the kids happy with their very own games room, with table tennis, table football and dolls’ house. Put your feet up in Grace, once the family home, and stretch out among 2000 feet of minimalist elegance. Relax, reset and chat away beneath high ceilings, in front of the working fire. Slide out to your own private courtyard.
Pick Affinity for grandeur, character and space. The kitchen, dining and living space is a monster, perfect for sociable cheffery. Come together beneath high ceilings, amid ancient beams and oak-panel doors. Or just stare at the views from the south-facing stone mullion windows over the formal garden, countryside and coast.
There’s another 2000 square feet in which to chill and sprawl in Bliss. High ceilings, oak-panelled doors and bags of history compete with glorious views from the stone mullion windows. And couples will love the chapel, an amorous hideaway packed with camper-van cool and rooftop terrace with hot tub.
Cooking and dining
At Hillcrest Manor, you can eat in the ballroom, a cavernous, butler-friendly space with a table capable of seating a small European country. Cook in the main house kitchen – just pop your roast in the Aga and chat away in the snug as the warmth wafts around the place.
If open-air dining is your thing, pop out to the terrace for a barbie and beers. When you’re done, cafetière coffee should perk you up enough to work it all off with a thrash around the tennis court. Stock up the fridge with fresh fish from Passmores or beef from Reeds, the butcher in Braunton.
Heading out? Options for both posh nosh and simpler, hearty fare are good. There’s a field-to-fork philosophy at The Rock in Georgeham. Tuck in to steak and Doombar Ale pie, Exmouth mussels, Lee-Bay crab, Spreacombe venison or Arlington Farm Lamb. Or enjoy a side order of skittles or shove ha’penny at the Grampus Inn.
Book well ahead for a night at The Olive Room, home of a Michelin star and owned by Nathan Outlaw-trained Thomas Carr. For more fine dining, head to Noel Corsten’s place in Woolacombe, for local ingredients with a Mexican twist. Or keep the kids happy with a children’s high tea at The Watersmeet.
Bedrooms
Plenty of bedroom options here across all four properties. All of them come under a deep duvet of rural silence broken only by the distant crash of the Atlantic rollers.
Affinity sleeps seven in three bedrooms. Bedroom one is a super-king with an ensuite. And, with a freestanding bath in the bedroom, you’ll feel like royalty. Bedroom two offers a superking and a single and shares a family bathroom with bedroom three, which comes with twin beds.
Bliss sleeps ten in four bedrooms. En-suite bedroom one offers a super-kingsize that converts to singles through zip-and-link, and there’s another in-room bath tub. Bedroom two is a super-king and a single with a shared family shower room, while bedroom three sleeps two in a king. King or twin bedroom four has both shower and bath in the ensuite.
Grace sleeps another nine in four bedrooms: a super-king, two twins, and a double plus single. Three non-en-suite bedrooms share a family bathroom equipped with bath, toilet and walk-in shower. A lovely mezzanine bedroom in The Chapel offers cosy accommodation for a lovestruck couple.
Children welcome
Kids’ memories are made of holidays, and kids’ holidays should be made of free-range days with space to run and play. They can do that here while making friends with the chickens, pigs and goats. At day’s end, you can gather round the flatscreen TVs for movie nights, cards or charades.
Other options for exhaustion include the pirate play area and a garden-escape games room, complete with table-tennis table, table football, dolls’ house and toys. For today’s digital kids, there’s superfast fibre-optic broadband on tap and Bluetooth music, too. Bookworms can escape to a cosy fire in a quiet corner.
Outside, the acres of woodland dotted with play equipment and the Italianate gardens make great picnic sites, and somewhere near the games room, there’s all-weather tennis on tap. Whack a ball around the court, kick a football around the lawns. Let them go wild and be the kids they were always meant to be.
Big adventures just over the horizon
Big adventures are just beyond the horizon, with rafting and paddleboarding on Putsborough Beach, or surfing at Croyde. Tackle the Tarka Trail on electric bikes. Meet marmosets and mongooses at Exmoor Zoo. Grown-ups can swing clubs at Saunton or Woolacombe, buy organic from Clovelly Court or shop at Bideford.
