West Down Estate Country House

At West Down Farm in Devon, you can cosy up in the reading room while your kids play games in the garden, your partner cooks dinner on the range and your mum relaxes in the sauna. This is a self-catering country house with plenty of space for extended family or groups of friends. Sleeping up to 18, the dining and sitting rooms are big enough for you to come together and celebrate a special occasion, but there are enough nooks, crannies and outdoor space for time apart too. And speaking of the outdoor space – well, that is rather special. West Down Farm is in the foothills of Exmoor – a National Park and Dark Sky Reserve in which you can spend your days walking and nights gazing at stars.

There are eight bedrooms – six en-suite and two family-sized rooms. It’s a good set-up for the groups who will be most at home here. The style of the place is in keeping with its age and location. It’s an early 20th century Arts & Crafts country house, with leaded windows, floral wallpapers and period furniture – homely but not without modern comforts. There’s WiFi throughout, Sky TV and a log burner in the sitting room, plus a sauna, hot tub, pizza oven, barbecue and a fire pit as well. It’s subtly contemporary in other ways too, with solid eco-credentials: water is from a borehole, electricity from solar panels and there's a biomass boiler as well.

You can help make your holiday here more sustainable still by using fresh local produce for the celebratory barbecues and dinners you'll no doubt be planning. Thankfully this is not hard to find. The Devonshire town of South Molton is just two miles away and home to independent butchers, fishmongers, cheese sellers and more. Head there on a Thursday or Saturday for its award-winning undercover market.

Beyond South Molton, you can head north four miles and find yourself in other-worldly Exmoor where ponies roam free and moorland and woodland stretches to the North Devon Coast. The closest place to hit the beach, though, is in the other direction: west, and easily reached thanks to West Down Farm’s handy proximity to the A361 – you can be at Saunton Sands or Westward Ho! in around30 minutes. If the location appeals but you can’t muster a group of 18, there’s always the option to visit with just one significant other. Tucked away elsewhere on the estate are a handful of boltholes for two – a luxury lodge and shepherd’s hut, both with their own hot tub.