LIFESTYLE

Mike White finds happiness on the Hartland Peninsula.

• There’s something strange about Philham Parlour. To begin with, we’re unsure what it is – then slowly it dawns: the quiet. Waking to birdsong, falling asleep to the gently susurration of wind through trees. A freshly converted stone building wedged on a roll of hill near the North Devon coast, the Parlour was once the old village swimming baths, but you’d never guess: it’s now an airy, spacious home from home – polished wood floors, sink-into-me sofas, plasma screen, DVD player and woodburning stove for romantic hunkering-down. The place sleeps five in two big bedrooms, each with flatscreen TVs and their own hotel-standard en suites. Just across the lane is a tussocky paddock with slide, football goal and giant trampoline, much to the delight of our Tiggerish two-year-old.

Philham itself is a tiny hamlet down a hedge-hugged lane; head north a couple of miles and you find Hartland – a sleepy village with decent pubs, well-stocked local shops and a chippie (recommended). The village lends its name to this particular bulge of North Devon – the Hartland Peninsula, which is a self-contained cottage-holiday paradise, criss-crossed by little footpaths, dotted with thatchy villages and edged by the glorious North Devon coastline, around which the South West Coast Path dips and rises. Hartland Quay offers dramatic waves and towering cliffs, there are several beaches – some sandyish, others more suited to rock-pool hunting. For picture-postcard days out, try Clovelly (steep, cobbly, huddled around its ancient harbour) or Bude – we stormed its sandy beaches, vanquished its castle (now a thoughtfully curated museum with excellent eaterie upstairs) and then defeated some uncommonly good ice-creams as the rain began to hammer down. Other worthy mentions in the area are Docton Mill with its manicured and daffodil-strewn gardens, the beautiful barrel-ceilinged church up the road at Stoke and the peacock-patrolled 12th-century grandeur of Hartland Abbey. We walked and walked, sighing with contentment as goodly taverns hove into view. So much fresh air is oddly exhausting, and we’d roll gratefully into bed earlier than usual, then lie there as moon-silvered clouds raced past the skylights, listening to nothing except the trees dancing in the wind.

PHILHAM PARLOUR PHILHAM, NR HARTLAND, BIDEFORD, DEVON, EX39 6DL. BOOK THROUGH FARM AND COTTAGE HOLIDAYS: 01237 459889 OR WWW.HOLIDAYCOTTAGES.CO.UK; FROM £338 FOR 7 NIGHTS.  
 

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