Family Holidays in Dartmoor

Added 2 yearss ago

Family Holidays in Dartmoor

How about a family holiday to the enchanted Dartmoor National Park?

"The village was quite soaked in sunshine. Zeal basked happy as a lizard beneath Cosdon's uplifted heights. It lay like a nest in the hollow of a desert place, and the sun burnt into it and lighted the cottage faces and blazed in the little flower-gardens by the way and cast deep purple shadows between the cots to make cool places for the children to play in and the dogs to rest." 

The Beacon was written by the marvellously named Eden Phillpots in 1911, this exert describes some of  the reasons that wonderfully wild Dartmoor remains a favoured destination for familes, artists, writers, walkers and dog owners today.

Dartmoor is a well preserved portion of the England that so captured the hearts of some of our nations favourite authors.  Writers such as Enid Blighton, whose pen was inspired by dappled valleys, curling rivers full of sticklebacks and of course marvellous Cream Teas with lashings of  ginger beer and then in contrast, there is the adventurous and famously talented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyles brooding protégé Sherlock Holmes was immortalised striding across the wild uplands along the  meandering  pony tracks that lead through great tracts of purple heather, he was of course accompanied by his stoic friend Doctor Watson who had trout fishing rods and friendship (just in case).

Whichever author’s landscape you love in Dartmoor, you will find it. Be it the dappled, child friendly brooks and leafy, picnic perfect valleys of The Famous Five or the visually stunning, peaceful panorama of moorland and heath, where the distinctive call of the curlew slips into a wanderers ears as readily as the tranquillity of the landscape does a writers heart or a trout fisherman’s soul.

But where to stay?

Choosing family friendly accommodation that compliments the mood and sheer luxury of escapism that a relaxing trip to Dartmoor provides is an important consideration. 

Accommodation that enhances the sense of time standing still and the gentler pace of a bygone era is not always readily found, despite the fact that Dartmoor is still such a treasured destination.

A Grade 1 Elizabethan Manor House, Boringdon Hall is a hotel with towers and tapestries to enchant and inspire all the family, it is a hotel yes, but it is a hotel with a history that begins in the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror.

Boringdon Hall has provided accommodation and security through the reign of well over 36 British Monarchs including Normans, Plantagenet, the infamous Tudors and the tragic Stuarts.

Boringdon Hall is an accommodation provider yes, but it is an accommodation provider that has serviced the accommodation needs of local Ladies, villeins, pages and of course Knights, devotedly through the ages as the residents and guests of Boringdon Hall passed back and forth through their lands and their wild fiefdom of Dartmoor and Devon.

A hotel with Knights?

Yes and for those with an interest the armour may be sought out in this Dartmoor hotel, along with a truly Hogwarts style fire place, marvellous burnished Oak panelling and mullion windows, plus an aptly named Great Hall which is still a favourite place to play board games or sip a cognac after dinner.

This Dartmoor hotel serves meticulously prepared dishes made from fresh ingredients; delivering this sort of quality and attention to detail makes Boringdon Hall a little more special than simply a Dartmoor accommodation provider. It means that a guest of Boringdon Hall becomes a part of the Dartmoor history and can immerse into the landscape that the writers and their readers loved. Of course we mean both big and little readers.

So yes, this school holiday why not open the pages of Boringdon Hall Hotel and Dartmoor and step inside? For once upon a time you never knew what you might find around the next leafy corner.