Why Devon is heaven (continued)

By Andrew Eames, Evening Standard

Last updated at 16:35 12 March 2003


Last week, the county of Devon was voted the best place to live by Country Life magazine, which particularly commended its tranquillity and the quality of its landscape. The likes of Damien Hirst, Jennifer Saunders and Rik Mayall have moved here, and the couple who created the Downe Farm complex of luxury cottages where I was staying (complete with fully fledged spa and gym) had a previous existence in corporate law in London.

Framing this picture of rural idyll is the south-west coast path, running along a volley of headlands, diving into valleys with birdsong and the smell of wood smoke, and then climbing up again into a sharp sea breeze to find that someone has subtly rearranged the scenery. This 630-mile path, which bends round Lands End and back towards Dorset, is 25 years old this year and attracts around two million people annually. Hartland is one of its most dramatic stretches.

One of the beauties of a coastal path is that it requires no navigational skill. If the sea is on one side and the land on the other, then you're heading out. If the two are reversed, you're coming home. But because it is on the edge of the known world it has another, more spiritual, dimension. It allows you to step out of yourself for a moment and look back on life with a sense of perspective.

I am happy to report that, in the course of that day's walking, I concluded that my life was tickety-boo - but it was hard to do otherwise in such magnificent scenery with the sun beating down. This was a coast-path-as-therapy scenario, and for most of the day it certainly reinvigorated me.

Towards the end, though, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. By the time I'd reached Welcombe on the Cornish border - a vale of sea pinks, sea campion, wild carrots, and a lone surfie packing up to go home - I was pretty much ready to do the same. I walked far enough to be sure I'd really crossed into Cornwall and then staggered back to Hartland via the narrow country lanes.

That evening it was I who was wrecked, but the damage wasn't serious. Nothing, anyway, that an hour in the Downe sauna and a session in the Wreckers wouldn't restore.

Way to go

Andrew Eames stayed at Downe Cottages (Tel: 01237 441881; www.downefarm.demon.co.uk), a farm conversion within a mile of the coast, which has a choice of short breaks from £280 or a week from £420 for a one-bedroom cottage. For a brochure about North Devon, call 01271 336070; www.northdevon.com

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