Castles and cream teas – at Dunster in Somerset

As I’m having a break in August from the world of work, I decided to take a couple of days to visit a friend in north Devon and together we played at being tourists, visiting some of the local sites. This part of England is marked by the wild landscapes of the Exmoor National park, but around the edges of the moor the landscape is green and rolling with steep sided lanes and picturesque thatched cottages built from the local stone or painted in shades of rich cream.

We called in at the village of Dulverton on the southern edge of Exmoor which is a good place to while away an hour or two, with interesting shops selling farm produce, antiquarian books and stylish gifts and jewellery. We tried lunch at a local gastropub called Woods which has received rave reviews and manages to combine an old world charm of wooden beams and deer antlers, with a bustling modern approach and delicious food. We both had salad dishes, mine of scallops and prawns and my friend’s of steak, although mine was a little light to keep me going so I topped up with a bowl of chips.

The next day we headed for Dunster, on the north edge of Exmoor, close to the sea, which is one of those places they come to film Agatha Christie costume dramas, with more pretty cottages and Dunster Castle, run by the National Trust up on the hill. Disappointingly the castle was closed on Thursdays for cleaning & renovation and was also shrouded in scaffolding. Not deterred, we took a look around the gardens instead, taking in the views towards the sea and peeping into the orangery. As we walked down from the castle, we saw a sign to the crypt saying Ghosts here. The door swung open and a group emerged, having made a special tour of the attics and crypts of the castle. We also saw signs advertising the bat tour as there are apparently bats roosting in one of the medieval staircases.

Tucked down a lane we found Dunster water mill and tea rooms and sat in the garden admiring the ducks who were in a pen at the other end of the garden. It would be a great place to bring the family for ice creams or a cream tea, but as it was lunchtime we stuck to our cheese and ham baguettes. After checking out a few of the gift shops in the village, buying some fudge and tasting the local ice cream we went in search of the perfect cream tea.

We found it at Selworthy, the sort of picture perfect village which features on calendars and is part of the Holnicote Estate, owned by the National Trust. It’s hamlet of thatched cottages, one of which you can rent and another housing the Periwinkle Cottage Tea rooms which looked, as it sounded, like something out of a Beatrix Potter children’s story. We sat in the garden and took afternoon tea (blackcurrent flavour in my case) with warm scones, jam (strawberry or loganberry?) and clotted cream, all served in rose covered china and tea from a pot with a flowery tea cosy. And I thought only great aunts and grannies still used tea cosies.

Even I was overwhelmed by this idyllic vision of Englishness which no longer exists except for the tourists. My friend had previously brought a French exchange student here who wolfed down his scone before he realised that you were supposed to cover it with jam and cream first – a bit like an English child wondering how to eat oysters or garlic snails I suppose.

As we returned to my friend’s house, the rain started and we noticed that the roads were flooded in places and covered by a debris of mud and sticks. While we had been sitting at the coast in sunshine, on the other side of Exmoor there had been a downpour and my friend’s garden was underwater, flooded by the nearby brook. After all, there is a reason why this corner of England is known for it’s lush green fields and dairy herds that produce all that clotted cream.

Compare prices and book hotels in Dunster through Hotels Combined

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You can see my photos from my visit to Devon and Somerset on my Flickr site here.

www.flickr.com    heatheronhertravels’ Devon photoset

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