Holiday Cottages Magazine

Artist and photographer Jenny Graham recalls a memorable winter weekend exploring the wilder coastal scenery of North Devon.

Driving from Somerset to North Devon in late winter, it’s a cold, bright February morning, the air icy and metallic. I have decided to take the slower roads as this will give me a better chance to admire the winter scenery. The old car and I meander through the scalloped red hills of Devon, and across the broad expanses of Exmoor. The shadowed verges of the B3227 are edged with ice, the overhanging rees tipped with the first signs of spring buds. I stop a few times to sketch, and eat lunch at a restaurant in South Moulton.

By the time I reach the rolling coastal downland of the Hartland Peninsula it is mid-afternoon. This is a rugged, wild place, a pointed triangle of land on the farthers north-western reaches of Devon. The trees and hedgerows lean at an alarming angle, pruned by the fierce winds of the North Atlantic. But for an artist like myself it’s an inspiring landscape. During my five-day stay here I plan to make preparatory sketches for a new series of paintings. I also hope to meet some of the other artists working the region.

I am booked in to Downe Cottages, a smart complex of self-catering accommodation just outside the village of Hartland, near Bideford. When he sees my car turning through the farm gate, owner Jeremy Roe comes smiling from the garden. He has been chopping wood, but removes his gloves and extends a firm hand shake to greet me. After offering a cup of tea, Jeremy shows me my temporary home.

The cottage is warm and welcoming, the wood-burner set for lighting, the central heating already turned on. Through my bedroom window the faint silhouette of Lundy Island beckons on the horizon. A vase of wild snowdrops glows from the kitchen table. It is not until after Jeremy leaves that I notice the box of chocolates and bottle of wine. Clearly it is this sort of attention to detail that marks Downe Cottages out as superior self-catering accommodaion.

That evening, over a glass of wine, Jeremy and his wife Lynda tell me about their recent move to Hartland. The Roes are an enthusiastic and energetic couple with an obvious passion for excellence. Jeremy left a lucrative job in commerce ten years ago after becoming disillusioned with city life and big business. The first year was spent restoring the farmhouse in which they are now living. Then he and Lynda began what was to become, and still is, an obsession. Their aim was to create an air of five-star luxury, but in self-catering surrounds, and they have done exactly that.

Downe Cottages, a group of sympathetic­ally restored 19th Century farm buildings, have everything for a comfortable and luxurious holiday. The latest project is a newly built gymnasium and health spa that is bound to take any holiday into an entirely different league. No need to worry about what to do on a rainy day in Hartland. This complex boasts a large gym, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi and comfortable lounge area with mini-bar and wide-screen television. Various treatments will also be available, from standard massages to aromatherapy sessions.

The following morning breaks clear and bright again. I am blessed with another perfect winter’s day. On my host’s recommendation, I decide to make the short walk to Hartland Quay. As directed by Jeremy, I follow the telegraph poles along the high-hedged road and up a muddy footpath. Approaching the coast, the landscape changes subtly from simple farmland into long stretches of gorse and blackthorn-covered scrubland. I make several sketches, captivated by the pale, clear sea light and the rich colours of the undergrowth.

But nothing can prepare me for the magnificence of the coastline. From the brow of the hill, the high cliffs drop away in various shades of red, brown, and ochre down to a horseshoe-shaped bay and a grey-green sea. The sun comes and goes behind clouds, illuminating patches of rock with bright shafts of colour. Clambering down the steep path to the rocky and shingled shoreline, I turn to look behind me and, in the lap of the bay, a wooded valley rises to a church tower on the high horizon. Two walkers come over the brow of the hill, stopping at the top to admire the view. They are the only other people here on this glorious morning.
On Friday evening, I am joined by my husband for the weekend, and the following day we decide to explore Clovelly. This historic fishing village, mentioned in the Domesday Book, lies just three miles along the coast to the east of Hartland. Pedestrian access to Clovelly is through a large, ugly (though apparently award-winning) glass and concrete building that comes with the usual twentieth century array of entrance fees, ticket booths, turnstiles and tacky gifts.

But on the other side of the visitors’ centre, as if through Alice’s looking glass, lies another far more captivating world. The ancient stone buildings of Clovelly cling to the cliff sides as if by magic, the cobbled streets so steep that deliveries must be transported on large wooden sleds. In Victorian times these were drawn by donkeys, although with the advent of animal rights this practice has long since ceased. Mind you, when we ran into the milkman slowly navigating his way down the bill it occurred to me that he might have been glad of a donkey….

Clovelly is still a working village and there is a palpable sense of marine history. Local fishermen attend to their boats, brightly coloured nets and ropes are piled on the quayside. Gulls circle above the medieval harbour walls like an animated Alfred Wallis painting and as we wander along the windy beach I wonder how the residents of 1,000 years ago had managed to build such a place. How they moved the stones down the precipitous hillside, and how many lives must have been lost in the building or out at sea.

Georgian Hartland itself has the good fortune of being somewhat cut off from the rest of North Devon with the nearest town, Bideford, 14 miles away. This semi-isolation means the village has maintained the strong sense of local community and the thriving rural economy often lost in today’s villages. There are several shops, a post office, at least two pubs and a garage. Hartland also has a lively and supportive community of musicians, artists and craftspeople, two of whom I decided to visit.

I meet Bob Seymour at his workshop in the village centre. He’s been making Windsor chairs for 20 years but is now gaining as much of a reputation for photography as he already has for furniture making. His subtle close ups of the North Devon shoreline speak loudly of his love of the abstract textures, colours and forms to be found in nature. Over a mug of tea, he shows me print after print, each one a gem of inspired observation. He has all the latest photographicequipment, but insists he’s, ‘not really interested in all that stuff. It’s the image that’s the important thing.’

Bob exhibits his large-scale prints at the Craft Company in Appledore, near Bideford, together with a number of other regional artists and makers, one of whom also lives in Hartland. After leaving Bob’s I walk down the street to meet her.

Merlyn Chestermans is an artist and printmaker whose work is equally inspired by North Devon and the landscapes of the Hartland Peninsula. Her atmospheric wood-and linocuts effectively capture the mood of the region. The strong shapes and contrasting tones of her work evoke all the fierceness of the prevailing winds and brilliant light of the coast. She also runs various printmaking workshops from her studio and is planning a whole new series of residential courses this summer. Merlyn asks me about my own work and exhibitions and I after an hour’s chatting I feel I have made a new friend.

On the last day of my stay in Hartland, it begins to drizzle as if to remind me that it is time to head back to my studio in Somerset. I hadn’t come far — Hartland is less than two hours from my home — but I feel as if I have experienced a very different environment: so affected by the sea, so wild and dramatic in its landscape that, in many ways, winter seems a natural and appropriate time to visit. And although I have discovered that the boat to Lundy Island doesn’t run in February, this is a small price to pay for being able to stand on the beach at Hartland Quay, all alone, with not another tourist in sight.