Downe Cottages

Downe Cottages Downe Cottages are a collection of nine deluxe and luxury self catering holiday cottages with sea views in North Devon. http://downecottages.com

19/09/2022

Downe Cottages: Great location, cottage and friendly hosts - See 97 traveler reviews, 85 candid photos, and great deals for Downe Cottages at Tripadvisor.

09/11/2020

An Antidote to Lockdown!

A couple of days ago, as we were sweeping up leaves at the front of the house, we came across a nest of hedgehogs. It wasn't a well built nest for hibernation, rather it was a temporary nest thrown together for a night's occupation under a couple of feet of leaves which had been blown against a garden wall.

There appeared to be two adults and at least three well fed hoglets a good month or so old sleeping together.

I don't think the two adults were a male and female (because the males tend to be larger and because they have a tendency to eat any hoglets they come across) but equally I don't think juvenile hedgehogs stay with their mother once they are fully weaned as hoglets. As a result I really don't know what the group's makeup was. Because one can easily cause the death of hoglets by disturbing the nest we quickly recovered the nest and left the group as undisturbed as we could.

It is the first time in more than sixty years that I have come across a nest of hedgehogs so it was both a big surprise and a delight to find them at Downe.

Some time ago I did see a large male hedgehog running across the lawn to the bog garden around the Lily Pond so I'm not surprised that hedgehogs are about at Downe but we have just seen so few at Downe over the last twenty years that coming across a nest of them is such a pleasure.

This year, with less intrusive behaviour from one neighbouring farmer, we have seen a real recovery of wild life on this side of the Hartland Peninsula. The birds, insects, animals and flora have all responded quickly to less intrusive farming. It is such an obvious difference in such a short period of time and I do wish everyone would see that small changes to everyday behaviours at work and in the home make such a big difference to the flora and fauna around us.

The bees and butterflies at Downe this year have been sensational, as have the dragonflies and damselflies. The hares have been particularly visible at Downe through the summer and now we have the hedgehogs. We have had otters down on the Abbey River and we have had seals singing at the bottom of the cliffs around the Point.

This morning we have had another big group of sparrows line the telephone wires that run along the side of the road outside Downe, chattering and chirping to create a background of static across the courtyard.

I was unaware that a large group of sparrows is called "a quarrel of sparrows" (like a large group of starlings is called "a mumuration" and a large group of ravens is called "a parliament").

I do like the term "a quarrel of sparrows". It is very descriptive of the noise and the jostling for places on the telephone wires. Not a bitter quarrel like Donald Trump has with the media but rather a family quarrel between youngsters.

Whatever it is called it is the perfect antidote to this second Lockdown

08/11/2020

A COUP DE STILETTO!

I am a great plagiarist.

My philosophy is simple. If someone has said something well, why should I reinvent the wheel?

In addition however, I often adapt expressions or words to best summarise things that have happened in my life.

An example of an adaption is the expression “coup de stiletto”. Its origin is the expression “coup de grace” which brilliantly distils the moment when a final blow or shot is given to dispatch a wounded animal or person. I use the expression “coup de stiletto” to describe the moment when a humorous remark takes the breath away from someone in mid argument and dispatches the argument they are making.

A simple example will suffice.

My relationship with my father-in-law, a retired teacher who had been active in the NUT, was not the easiest one. We had very different views about politics and education and the many discussions that we had took place with the framework of our difficult relationship.

On one occasion we were sitting at the lunch table and had been debating with some force the future of the NHS. As often happened, the conversation had become a little acrimonious. With the over confidence of someone born after the Second World War, I was expounding about the social forces in Britain that had existed before the War which led to the creation of the NHS. My father-in-law, who had commanded a landing craft in the Normandy Landings at the tender age of 21, disagreed with my analysis of pre-War Britain and sought to rebut my analysis by relying on a single undisputed fact.

“I was alive before the War,” he insisted, “I was alive before the War!”

At this, his mild mannered wife knitting quietly beside him, never lifting her eyes from her knitting, gently inserted the dagger: “Were you dear? What happened to you afterwards?”

There was a moment’s silence, as though someone had dropped a tray of crockery onto a slate floor, and then a roar of laughter from everyone but my father-in-law whose argument disappeared over the horizon as he floundered in the treachery of his soul mate.

That's what I call a “coup de stiletto”.

Looking in the bathroom mirror this morning, dressed in no more than my boxer shorts, I observed, more to myself than to my good wife, that I was definitely losing weight and that “There is a lot less flab around my waste!”

My wife, my soul mate and sweetest supporter, observed from the bedroom that “Obviously Donald Trump was not the only one with delusions!”

The coup de stiletto!.

My father-in-law would have enjoyed that exchange.

23/10/2020

“The Case Of The Missing Flame” - A Mystery at Downe

It’s been a cold and breezy October day and the Aga has flickered, spluttered and died on us. We only realised that it had gone out when Lynda lent against the handrail in front of the Aga to warm herself after her brief trot back to the house from Wistaria Cottage which she had been setting up for guests due in tomorrow.

Lynda is a very practical person and I have often described her as “the Mary Poppins of Downe” (because she is “perfectly practical in every way”) and the dying of the flame produced a surge of what I can only assume are “practical endorphins” released within Lynda’s nervous system.

Upon discovering that the Aga had gone out, practical Lynda immediately began to investigate why. Before I could pour my first cup of Earl Grey, she had the front cover off the burner and was down on her hand and knees checking the wick. Before I could finish my second cup of Earl Grey, she had checked the oil supply and the vent in the flue rising from the Aga to the chimney.

“I don’t understand it. it’s a mystery!” she announced, standing with her hands on her hips, staring down the six door Aga.

“Perhaps I should call you Aga…the Christie.” I said, lifting my eyes from the newspaper on the kitchen table.

It always surprises me how quickly a chill can engulf our kitchen!

23/10/2020

“Rebecca” at Downe

The new film version of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” has just been released on Netflix.

We had a particular reason for seeing the film: various members of the cast and crew (including Lily James, who plays Rebecca, and the director Ben Wheatley) stayed at Downe during that part of the filming which took place on the Hartland Peninsula. As a result, on Wednesday evening Lynda and I closed the curtains, lit the log burner, uncorked a nice Chianti and put on Netflix.

What a lovely evening!

There are many reasons why the firm is worth watching (it’s great fun; it’s a story told with pace, colour and panache; Kristen Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers is a tour de force, beautifully malicious; Ann Dowd as Mrs Van Hoper is wonderfully spiteful etc. etc.) but there is one particular reason why I recommend that everyone watch the film: it contains some fabulous images of the Hartland Peninsula.

Ben Wheatley and his director of photography, Laurie Rose, are responsible for these images and they oblige the viewer to see the cliffs and the rocky shores that edge the Hartland Peninsula as they should be seen: beautiful, inspiring, majestic and conveying deep emotions.

The Hartland Peninsula is breath taking and is the emotionality of that landscape that Ben and Laurie have seen and captured. It is what makes the Hartland Peninsula so special.

And Downe sits in the middle of this most fabulous landscape.

12/10/2020

The Perfect Girl

Lynda and I have been married for just over fifty years.

It was our Golden Wedding Anniversary a few months ago and the subject of "the perfect wife" came up in a conversation with our children.

The conversation brought to mind a school friend of mine whom I shall call Pete.

Pete was a tall, athletic boy with almost unnaturally complicit blond hair.

Pete grew into a tall, handsome young man with an exceptional dress sense and unnaturally groomed blood hair. I often said of him that Roger Moore looked shabby by comparison. Pete had both a natural elegance and style. And that hair!

As is often the case with those who are elegant, Pete was obsessive about many of the details in his life and I regularly heard him complain about the girls he met and the girls he briefly dated. All of them fell short of his demanding standards. I used to tease him, telling him he was obsessed with finding "the perfect girl".

Time passed and we went our separate ways.

A decade or so ago I bumped into Pete at a business meeting in London. Pete had by then lost his slim figure to the twin Sirens of food and drink and his hair to the genetic curse of male pattern baldness. Although it was a formal meeting, his suit was crumpled and his suit trousers unpressed.

On hearing that he had never married and lived alone, I remarked: "So, you never did find the perfect Girl!"

He paused before replying, a look of deep sadness briefly crossing his face.

"On the contrary. I found the perfect girl. I asked her to marry me but she said no. She was looking for the perfect man."

If ever I complain about something Lynda has said or done she reminds me of Pete, and speaks his name with a glint in her eye that only total job security can explain.

10/10/2020

The Silence of the Gulls

In the past I have posted about the surprise that Lynda and I felt when we first arrived at Downe some twenty three years ago. Although only a mile as the gull flies from the Atlantic Ocean and framed by the Atlantic on three sides on the tip of The Hartland Peninsula, we rarely heard the calls of sea gulls.

We heard bird calls everywhere as we walked around Downe and everyday at some moment I find myself listening to the call or song of at least one bird but I rarely hear the call of sea gulls.

This morning Lynda and I were setting up the cottages for our visitors arriving today. We were up quite early and at about 7.00 a.m. Lynda called me out from Honeysuckle Cottage to see the gulls circling above Downe.

I am uncertain how one ever accurately counts a flock of circling birds. (If I was being asked to give their number on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" I would be calling a friend!) Anyway, there were somewhere between five hundred and a thousand gulls circling right above Downe, centering on the courtyard. The extraordinary thing was the absence of noise. Just hundreds of these big white birds circling in the early morning light. The only noise was the caw of the occasional rook that flew through the flock of gulls.

It was, to use a word frequently overused by those interviewed on television, awesome. We stood for a minute or so in silence looking up at these wonderful birds. The flock as an entirety was majestic. Stunning. Quite humbling in its own way.

And all this before I'd even had my elevenses!

17/09/2020

Running holiday cottages is quite a sociable activity. Even in these Covid besotted times, very pleasant conversations can be had with guests who are coming and going to their cottage as long as social distancing is observed.
Earlier this week Lynda and I chatted with a couple who have stayed with us for many years. Peter started to chat about swimming off Hartland Quay, He had been down at the Quay at midday on the gorgeously sunny Monday and had taken the opportunity to go for a swim.
Being naturally sociable, Peter had started to discuss the timing of swimming off Hartland Quay with another visitor and with a young man who lived locally.
Peter observed that at high tide the ocean made an ideal swimming pool out of the beach at Hartland Quay. The water was warmed by the rocks on a sunny day and reached a vey comfortable depth alongside the rocky remnants of the Quay.
The young man started to explain that he and his friends regularly swam off the Quay. He mentioned swimming in the morning, at midday, in the afternoon and in the evening.
The visitor chatting with Peter and the young man was most impressed and, given the list of times that young man had mentioned, asked him at what time of the day didn't he swim off the Quay.
"When I am at College." replied the young man.

17/09/2020

Downe Cottages: A Humble Address

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Downe Cottages, Hartland
Bideford
EX396DA

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 10pm
Tuesday 7am - 10pm
Wednesday 7am - 10pm
Thursday 7am - 10pm
Friday 7am - 10pm
Saturday 7am - 10pm
Sunday 7am - 10pm

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A little bit of history ........

Downe is first noted on Hartland’s parish records in the 1480s when the farmhouse would have been no more than an open stone animal shelter for the few cows and sheep that the occupants of Downe owned at that time. The extended human family would have lived above the animals in a thatched room over the open stone animal shelter. (They lived above the animals in order to protect their animals from the pirates that still sailed the North Devon Coast and the brigands that lived on Exmoor and Dartmoor – think of Lorna Doone - and to benefit from a very early form of central heating!) The walls of the family’s home would have been a few feet high along the “longsides” with a thatched pitched roof leading to a centre no more than a foot above head height. In the centre against the North Wall an open fire would have smouldered twenty four hours a day. Stone steps led up the outside wall into the room.

Over the centuries the farm house, rather like Topsy, grew and grew.

In the Sixteenth Century the original open barn became enclosed and was then converted into the farmers’ living quarters. In the Seventeenth Century a first floor was added by lifting the thatched roof and living rooms were added as a new wing on the South of the building, some of the ceiling beams showing signs that they had been gathered from ships wrecked on the coast of the Hartland Peninsula. In the Eighteenth Century a large working kitchen was added to the North of the building (the oak beamed ceiling has beams eight inches deep cut from oak trees grown nearby and still showing the bark of the trees they were cut from). In the Nineteenth Century a barn was added making a Northern Wing to the house and leading to its current “Z shaped” footprint.

In the early Twentieth Century dog kennels were added to the South wing and then slowly as the Century passed all of the buildings making up that “Z shaped” footprint were converted into human accommodation.