Category: SOUTHWEST ENGLAND

Picture-perfect Devon has long been one of the country’s favourite holiday destinations, and with such a smorgasbord of natural wonders, it’s not hard to see what keeps the holidaymakers coming back. Blanketed with patchwork pastures, dotted with rural villages, and bordered by some of the country’s most stunning coastline, it’s a county with something to offer everyone: a place to walk the hills, roam the fields and bike the bridleways before stuffing yourself with some hearty Devonian cooking in a backcountry inn. If it’s the quintessentially kitsch British seaside you’re after, then head to the South Devon Coast for the chintzy seaside resorts of Ilfracombe, Torquay & Paignton. For a bit more class, the ancient Roman city of Exeter has some of the best preserved medieval architecture in the southwest, not to mention one of its most impressive cathedrals. And if you’re really looking to get away from it all, the wild expanse of Dartmoor National Park makes the perfect place to escape the summertime crowds.

The small market town of Moretonhampstead stands at an old crossroads where two of the main routes across Dartmoor meet, and makes a handy base for exploring the eastern moor.

Dorset’s most beautiful stretch of coastline runs along its southeastern edge, dotted with glittering bays and crumbling cliffs, as well as the romantic ruins of Corfe Castle and the remote Isle of Purbeck (actually a peninsula).

Thomas Hardy connections abound around Dorchester, which doubles in his novels as the market town of Casterbridge. Hardy was born just outside Dorchester in the village of Higher Bockhampton, and the author lived here for much of his life; its solid red-brick streets, stately Georgian townhouses and agricultural heritage seem to have held an enduring fascination for him, and the place certainly seems immediately familiar if you’ve ever read any of his novels. Hardy’s memory lingers on at two of his former homes; for something less literary there are some good restaurants scattered around towns, as well as some odd museums dedicated to dinosaurs, teddy bears, Tutankhamen and the Terracotta Warriors.

If Padstow is Cornwall’s Cannes, then Newquay is its Costa del Sol. Perched on the cliffs above a cluster of white-sand beaches, and packed with enough pubs, bars and dodgy clubs to give Ibiza a run for its money, it’s become the summer venue of choice for beer boys, beach bums and surf addicts alike, all of whom descend on the town in droves. It’s also the unofficial capital of Cornish surfing, and if you’re looking to learn how to brave the waves, this is the place to do it.

Cornwall’s southwest coastline, dotted with inlets, estuaries and wooded creeks, has long been one of the county’s main maritime areas. The deepwater port at Falmouth – the third-largest natural harbour in the world – is still a busy seafaring town, and the remote area further to the west around the Lizard was once notorious as a haven for smugglers and wreckers. These days, history and natural scenery are the main attractions, with long stretches of protected coastline, fine beaches and some of Cornwall’s most impressive subtropical gardens all within easy reach of Falmouth.

For many people the bustling market towns, babbling brooks and thatch-roofed cottages of rural Dorset are inextricably bound up with one name – Thomas Hardy, the 19th-century novelist, who lived most of his life in Dorset and used it as the setting for some of his most famous tales. But the county is more than just a literary landmark, it’s a historical one too – Iron Age remains, tumbledown abbeys and medieval towns are dotted all over the Dorset landscape, and the glorious stretch of crumbling coastline along the county’s southern edge – the Jurassic Coast – is where many of Britain’s most important fossils have been discovered. The centre for budding ammonite-hunters is Lyme Regis, but for a taste of the classic British seaside, head west to the popular coastal resorts of Weymouth and Bournemouth, where day-trippers have been strolling along the promenades since the days when crinoline and whalebone corsets were in vogue.

The north Cornish coast is where the rolling grey Atlantic smacks hard into the county’s granite cliffs, and for many people it’s the quintessential Cornish landscape – a wild mix of grassy headlands, craggy bluffs and pounding surf. It’s also where you’ll find the county’s best beaches and biggest waves, so in summer the winding clifftop roads are often jammed with tourists; but visit in the off-season when the weather’s cooler and the holidaymakers have left for home, and you might have some of Cornwall’s finest sand all to yourself.