Visiting local dog-friendly places

We try to give our guests different ideas about what they can do while they stay at Ley Farm, with both our website and the welcome folder containing information about local attractions, foodie places to visit or walks in the surrounding hills. We’re making a concerted effort to visit each place to make sure we don’t recommend anywhere that’s not great, and so when we have family or friends to stay, we’re trying to take them to a different place each time.

In the run up to summer when we have guests staying for longer periods of time and the weather is better, we’re also developing a set of Recommended Days Out itineraries to take the hassle out of our guests’ holidays and so they can make the most of their stay. We absolutely want to make sure we’ve been to each of these places before they end up on this list! So this weekend we tried out a few new dog-friendly places to see what they’re like.

We started by driving out to the Upottery Heritage Centre at Smeatharpe which is at the top of the next valley along from us and was the site of a World War 2 airfield – one of three to be built in the Blackdown Hills. The site was built for – and played a pivotal role in – the D-Day operations, with about 2,500 men and lots of equipment flown across the channel. The Heritage Centre is located in a remaining Nissen hut and has a huge amount of information about the preparation and operation itself, as well as personal stories of some of the men who left from there. There are videos, photos, stories and memorabilia that really help to tell the story and bring it to life. It’s incredibly moving to hear about the personal sacrifices people made and hear just how much people did in the fight for peace.

Our second stop was above Axminster at Teas and Creams, a locally-owned tea room with a beautiful view up the valleys into the Blackdown Hills. The team there are so welcoming and made a lovely fuss of our dog too. The tea rooms are beautifully decorated inside and have lots of outdoor seating if you wanted to sit and watch the view instead. This is definitely making it onto a Recommended Day Out – with cakes (including a delicious cream tea), ice-creams, and lunch options – there’s something for everyone! Teas and Creams also support local businesses and offer a range of extras from jams and chutneys to cat and dog treats, to books and jigsaws too. A lovely little spot!

The final place we visited with the intention of adding it to our Recommended Days Out itinerary was Powderham Castle. It’s a little further away on the other side of Exeter on the Exe Estuary, but well worth the drive. The castle (with very grand rooms) is incredibly child and dog friendly, with fascinating tours of the castle and its history. The estate contains a rose garden with a chapel, a deer park, a petting farm with free-range peacocks in the old walled garden, a folly tower at the top of a steep hill overlooking the estuary, and another folly (the ‘pavilion’) hidden in a woodland garden. There is so much to see and explore, you could easily spend most of the day there, before stopping in The Bistro at Powderham for food on your way out.

And on the way home, we bumped into a vintage tractor run driving through the lanes – about 40 old tractors in a convoy. Since the lanes are so narrow we had no choice but to stop and watch of course!!

An action-packed weekend – we certainly gained some inspiration for our Recommended Days Out this weekend!!