Full disclosure – I’m not away in my caravan. Reason being, I am away with my parents and a decision was made to find a cottage rather than use our caravans for the week when we weren’t sure of the weather. A cop out you may say? Well, yes probably, but I’ve still not had all the bits sorted in my van that were wrong when I picked it up in August, one being squeaky brakes, so forgive me. Let’s just say I may no longer recommend White Arches in Rushden, their after-care customer service is appalling.
Anyway, so where am I this week……Devon. Specifically, North Devon in Bucks Mills, which is to the left of Lynton. There is an arrow on the image below, in the rough area.
We are staying in the most gorgeous cottage caked George’s cottage. Its picture postcard gorgeous as you will see below.
It’s thatched, so the ceilings are low, as are the windows, and so pretty! There’s one room downstairs, for the living room, dining table and kitchen and upstairs are two bedrooms and a bathroom. One thing I’ve learnt from carvanning (amongst many lessons!) is that you don’t need too much space to live comfortable and have a nice time.
Directly to the right of the cottage as you leave the front door is a hill down to the sea. Only a short, but very steep, walk down, which we plan to do tomorrow morning.
Our first evening was spent enjoying a lovely cold chicken with vegetable dinner and an early night after Dad has perfected the art of fire building – let’s hope his success lasts as there are only night storage heaters here!
Day One – exploring our village and off to Clovelly
We started our day with a relaxing walk down to the seafront. We were sure of the way to go from the handy sign in our cottage garden!
A majority of the houses in Bucks Mills are holiday homes so it was very quiet as we walked down, just the sunshine and bird song, plus the sound of rushing water along the gulley’s either side of the single-track road.
On the way down to the beach, we passed a small house to the left, which we found was a National Trust property. Between the 1920s and 70s, the ‘Cabin’ was the summer home of two talented artists, Mary Stella Edwards and Judith Ackland.
Though well-travelled ladies, the first love was this North Devon bolt-hole, where they painted outside with a great eye for beauty and detail. You can see some of their work here and there’s more detail on the National Trust website here.
Sadly, it was all shut-up, but I got some photos through the windows! I would love to have stayed here, look at the view!
We continued down the hill and came to the ruins of the old lime kiln that used to stand on this spot. Further along the pebble beach was a waterfall, sourced from the woodlands above.
We spent some time walking along, but eventually the pebbles go too much, so time for a selfie and back up the hill.
On the way up the hill, we met with a man doing a treasure hunt (I was jealous) who had the question, ‘Who was evacuated to Bucks Mills during WW2’? The answer is Prunella Scales!
We chose to have lunch at the cottage after a lovely coffee sat in the sun in our garden and then headed to Clovelly.
Clovelly estate is home to the Rous family and has been for over 400 years. From Elizabethan times until today, it has remained in private ownership. Consequently this has helped preserve its originality and atmosphere. The village remains a fully functioning working fishing village, clinging to a 400 foot cliff, overlooking Bideford bay. It has no vehicular traffic on its steeply cobbled street, just donkeys and sledges. The man-powered sledges transport all goods to and from the village, from groceries to furniture – you can see the modern sledges they use within the photos below.
It was quite a walk up and down (everywhere seems to be on a hill in North Devon!) but this meant some very pretty views on the way.
The quay dates back some 600 years and has long provided the only safe harbour along the coastline from Appledore in Devon to Boscastle in Cornwall (that’s a long way!). Like most coastal villages, Clovelly had its own fishing fleet and was renowned for its herrings and cod, but also had its fair share of disasters, one being in October 1821 where 40 boats were smashed on the rocks and 35 men died.
The area was also known for its smuggling and you may have heard of the book ‘Westward Ho! (Book club Ladies – idea?!) and this book helped Clovelly’s popularity grow in 1855 and throughout the 1920s and 30s, paddle steamers bought crowds of tourists to the village.
You pay to enter the village, but this covers your car parking and all fares inside. There’s lots of places to explore, sit and enjoy the view and eat and drink. It was a lovely afternoon out.
I am now dedicated to finding viewpoints and different places to go to in the UK and found another today! We knew we wanted to try a specific pub for dinner that had received good reviews online, but were a little early so we headed towards Hartland Quay to see what we could find. We found this!
On to our pub of choice, the Kings Arms in Hartland. As the reviews state, the staff were incredibly friendly and I was very impressed with their choice of gin! I decided on a Rhubarb and Raspberry gin with tonic and it was delicious. I also enjoyed a pizza which nearly beat me! They were playing the football on the TV at the time we were there, but I’ve never seen such well-behaved and polite supporters!
Back to our cottage for dessert after our pizzas had gone down of my Mums delicious cake and a cup of tea and then bed.
Day Two – Off to the left – Westward Ho! and Appledore
We spent the morning deciding on our trips over the next few days to make the most of any good weather. That meant that today (forecast, Fair) we would drive around to discover some of the local towns and villages.
First stop was a viewpoint called Kipling Torrs, or what was supposed to be, but we ended up near a holiday camp on top of a hill! Luckily enough, this meant that we discovered a dilapidated house on the hill that may well inspire me for a short story submission. My brain was going crazy while I was there, so I took lots of photos and will try to get my ideas on paper soon. It was such a shame to see what must have been a magnificent house at some point in such a bad shape. We walked along the cliff top for a bit before turning back and heading towards Westward Ho! (Which we drove straight through) and on to Appledore.
We had found a leaflet on a Maritime museum here, so parked in the car park opposite and made our way inside. It was a very interesting place to see and the volunteers were all so friendly and helpful. We spent a good hour looking around and finding out about the history of ship building in Appledore and all of the boats that had left the port over the years. We also heard about how they used this area during WW2 to test waterproof uniforms, armoured vehicles and all the other Hobarts Funnies.
We had bought our own lunch, so sat in the car to eat before deciding to have a stroll through Appledore.
As we had been in Devon for two days now, it was about time we had a cream tea right? Look at this!!
Mum found a few good reviews of this place on line and they were so right!
We needed a walk after this and luckily the car was up a hill. It also helped that we walked up one street, only to discover there was no way out of it, so walked back and found the street was actually called……
On to Bideford for a stop at Tesco to stock up on providsions and back to the cottage where my parents relaxed in front of the fire while I went for a run/uphill walk to try to recver from my pizza and cream tea treats!
It was all up hill to start with, but what goes up….. I ended up at the seafront again, that looked very different with the tide in.
Back to the cottage for a shower and then we managed to fit in a late dinner of homemade chilli and rice. My Dad and I are very lucky mum is such a good cook/baker. Dad is in control of the fire now, so lovely and warm and I’m writing this blog from the kitchen table. Soon to bed – the walk/run has worn me out!
One (wo)man and her (cara)van 