At one corner of the moor you'll find Bovey Tracey (pronounced "buvvy"), a charming little town with a picturesque high street. You can easily while away a couple of hours here. There's an excellent deli & food shop that sells lots of local specialties, including a wide range of Devon cheeses and fresh clotted cream. Just next to the visitor car park you'll find the Devon Guild of Craftsmen's shop in the old town mill.
Devon has become a bit of an artists' community, with many craft shops and galleries throughout the county. But this is one of my favourites. Selections change regularly, there's a great variety of art forms (glass, wood turning, calligraphers, sculptors, furniture makers, etc.) and you can find both small, reasonably priced items and pieces that are a proper investment. Sliding down from high culture, The House of Marbles is another must see. Yes, it's stocked with every conceivable marble you could ever want. (Not the stone. The round things you play with.) But it's also a fabulous toy, gift and knick nack shop. Best of all, its decorated with marble runs, ranging in size from a few feet square to one that covers a massive wall. You can stand here for hours to watch the giant marbles drop into the run and proceed through a maze of improbable machines, slides and obstacles before reaching the bottom. Compelling.Dartmouth is another town worth an afternoon's wander. This deep water harbour at the mouth of the river Dart has been a major port since the middle ages. The nautical tradition continues; it's still the home of the Royal Navy officer's training college. It's a wonderfully picturesque town, climbing up hillsides on both sides of the river and watched over by two castles. There are numerous historic buildings, including a good handful of late medieval and Tudor specimens with atmospheric half -timbering and rich carved details. All the standard high street shops are here, plus a few smaller boutiques, plenty of pubs and restaurants.
Much to my delight, the area has abundant National Trust properties, all of them different enough from each other than you could tour several in one holiday and not get bored. Not to mention getting your NT membership to pay for itself. I suspect I recouped my annual investment this weekend.
Closest to the Cherrybrook Hotel, my usual pied a terre in the area, is Buckland Abbey, home of Sir Francis Drake. There's an interesting museum in the house that gives you the background on Drake, his privateering, his relationship with Elizabeth and his role in the Spanish Armada. The house has a lovely late Tudor hall, a recently restored knot garden and a stable area that's been turned into a series of craft shops. What's almost completely unique, however, is the way this multiple-story home was built into the framework of an abbey church. You can visit many homes made from dissolved abbeys. They're usually built over the old cloisters, or built out from the abbot's house. This is the only example I know where the house was built into the church itself. If anything proves the Spanish claim that Drake was a godless pirate, it's probably the fact that he took over God's house for himself with impunity. You have to admire the man's bravado.About 40 minutes away, just on the outskirts of Plymouth, is Saltram House. Film buffs may instantly recognise this as the grand house from which the Dashwood women were evicted in Emma Thompson's "Sense & Sensibility". There's a good reason they chose it for the film. Lovely interiors, a trim Georgian facade and a park that offers plenty of splendid views, both back at the house and out over farmland and water. (Sadly, the industrial sprawl of Plymouth now taints those sea views, but it's still dramatic.) For architecture buffs, the most notable thing here is that it's a Robert Adam designed house, with plenty of his room furnishings, carpet designs and colourful classical ceilings still intact. There's also a beautiful garden that was particularly good in March with its abundance of daffodils and camellias.
Come down off the moor into Tavistock (another town worth exploring, with a good farmers' market once a fortnight, one of my favourite pet supply shops and a cheerful variety of tat and crafts in the Pannier Market) and you'll see signs for the National Trust property of Cotehele. Follow them along a half hour drive that wanders through forests and you come to an old stone bridge over the river Tamar. Cross it, and you're in Cornwall. Another 20 minutes brings you to one of the best late Medieval/early Tudor houses in England. A classic courtyard-style house, there's an evocative great hall, a family chapel with one of the oldest clocks in the country, lots of atmospheric panelled rooms and a particularly good variety of curtained, four-poster beds with original hangings. The rooms are rich with tapestries and pre-Georgian furniture thanks to the fact that this was a secondary family home; whenever anything went out of fashion at the main place, it was stored here. Lovely gardens sweep down to the Tamar, and there are well-marked walks with excellent views through the woods along the river.
One last National Trust property down here I'll mention is Antony. This one, like Cotehele, is in Cornwall, about an hour in total away from the Cherrybrook Hotel. Stylistically, this house is different again. This time, a wonderful monument to Queen Anne. All venerable panelling, high ceilings, supercilious family portraits and delicate furniture. Very august and respectable, if a bit stuffy. Which makes the gardens and their modern sensibility such a lovely contrast. The current head of the family -- this is one of the properties still occupied by the original owners -- is a past president of the Royal Horticultural Society, and the gardens here are well worth a wander. Innovative topiary (I've never seen a topiary tee pee before) divides the garden into different sections ranging from informal to oriental to traditional herb garden. As with so many great houses in this part of the world, there are lovely views down to the water. Several of the gardens are enlivened with modern sculpture, a sure sign that this landscape is still living and evolving. About half a mile from the main house begins the woodland garden, which at this time of year was a blaze of camellias, primroses and early rhododendrons. A circular path eventually climbs you up to the garden's high point, marked with a modern take on a Neolithic standing stone and possessed of a remarkable view over house, garden and estuary.
It was precisely at the point I reached it that the sun came out in a blaze of glory, validating my Easter wanderings. I went through snow, sleet, wind and rain, but that beautiful moment on Easter Monday reminded me that no weekend trip to Dartmoor is ever wasted.
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