Daily Mail

It’s a forgotten corner of the West Country seemingly straight from the pages of Agatha Christie. Peter Hardy steps back in time

You might imagine the locals in this quaint seaside village were only to be found in an Agatha Christie novel.
But on a sunny May morning, the tweed-suited owner of a Morris Minor Traveller is coaxing fuel from the sole petrol pump in the village’s impossibly narrow street.

An ancient Massey Ferguson tractor accounts for the rest of the traffic, while a carefully-coiffured double of Miss Marple ventures forth from her white-painted cottage.

The Handy Store sells fishing tackle, socks, and tin openers while, the Hartland Pantrydisplays apples and artichokes untouched by fertilisers.

Three pubs, two potteries, a furniture-maker, a brass band, a chamber orchestra, and a competitive cribbage team all breathe life into Hartland, tucked away in the most obscure rural reaches of North Devon, to form the quintessential tableau of an English village from 50 years ago. Most visitors trekking southwards on the A39 from Bideford to Bude drive on by on their way to Tintagel, oblivious to this backwater, their sights firmly set on sand and seafood to the south.

What they miss is the very best of the West Country seaside: forbidding 400ft cliffs with views of Lundy Island beyond, interspersed with remote rocky beaches and tiny communities almost untainted by tourism.

A startled red deer bounds up the single-track lane as I pass 12th century Hartland Abbey, a mile from the sea, up to Downe Cottages which provide the finest accommodation.

Five Victorian farm buildings have been converted into eight luxurious cottages set around a state-of the-art health spa, offering a range of massages along with aromatherapy, reflexology, hot tub, sauna, and fully equipped gym.

‘We offer more than just the seaside,’ said my therapist.  ’It’s a chance for busy people to unwind and relax in beautiful surroundings. If the sun shines, that’s great, but our visitors come here all year round.’

However, today the sun is shining. An early-morning walk to the village across beds of bluebells is to step into a Monet painting. Hedgerows glisten in the dew as I talk my way past the three Collies and two Jack Russells guarding Berry Farm and the secret beach beyond.

In the 17th century, Hartland Quay, few miles away and reached by a £1.50 toll road, was a prosperous port. All that remains is the Hartland Hotel, the Wrecker’s Retreat pub and the rock beach where TV gardener Alan Titch marsh fell foul of the tide and scrambled to safety up the unstable 90ft cliff.

On summer Sunday evenings the Hartland band serenades the sunset here, and the location acts as alchemist, transmuting brass to gold. Sleepy Stoke, the nearest village, has what is said to be the finest cream tea in Devon at Stoke Barton Farm opposite the landmark St Nectan’s Church.

However, isolation is not absolute in this clotted cream corner of Devon. Clovelly, a privately-owned village with such a steep cobbled street leading down to the sea that the principal form of transport is by woodern sledge, is just three miles away. The clematis-clad cottages are wonderful and the real thing.

‘It is as if the place had stood stil while all the world had been rushing and rumbling past it,’ wrote Victorian novelist Charles Kingsley, who lived here as a child. In August, the number of visitors to this toytown of 450 inhabitants, which outwardly has remained largely unchanged, exceeds credulity ‘Only bother to see it in summer before sunrise or after sunset,’ said a local.

Back in Hartland, the Morris Minor is now full of petrol, and Miss Marple has returned to her cottage, but the village remains mercifully crime-free.