Top 10: the best boutique hotels in Devon
An expert guide to the best boutique hotels in Devon, featuring the top places to stay for Georgian mansions, charming interiors, period features, cocktails bars and seaside views, in locations including Exeter, Salcombe, Tavistock and Dartmoor.
Lympstone Manor
Exmouth, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Britain's most exciting new country house hotel in decades, with double Michelin-starred BBC Great British Menu icon Michael Caines MBE at the helm, and extraordinary food. Michael has worked marvels with this vanilla ice cream-hued Georgian mansion, dramatically bringing the colours of the estuary inside: champagne-fabric sofas, powder-blue walls, wispy sage green linen drapes and quicksand-soft carpets woven from grey-silver thread. All different, with a colour palette inspired by local birds. Beds are handmade by Devon craftsmen, brushed with gold and cut with the shapes of shells and waves. The house's Hawthorne-garnished grounds slope right down to Devon's Exe estuary. Order a champagne and elderflower cocktail and watch the sunset. Read expert review From £350per night
whitehouse
Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
This Georgian family home has been converted into a contemporary comfort zone, decorated with chunky furniture, pop art, statement lights and well-worn vintage items. There’s a put-your-feet up, do-as-you-please atmosphere: it’s not unheard of for guests to dine in their pyjamas. The six rooms have handmade wooden beds, metallic wallpaper and retro lights and a bespoke wooden mini-bar ice-box. The hotel is run by three charming, down-to-earth friends and a small team of attentive staff. Thoughtful touches include jars of marshmallows for toasting over the fire. Dogs dozing by the crackling log fire complete the domestic picture. Read expert review From £185per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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The Pig at Combe
Gittisham, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Rural chic hotel Combe House is sexy and fun as well as romantic. Interiors, cleverly combine original features, including panelled walls, stucco ceilings and family portraits, with their own distinctive look, incorporating trompe l’oeil, vintage finds, comfy shabby-chic furniture, velvet and gently patterned fabrics, mismatched plates and glasses, plants in terracotta pots and so on.The 27 rooms are are some of the most charming, traditional yet stylish (larders and minibars cleverly hidden inside antique cupboards; some televisions disguised as antique mirrors), comfortable, practical, quirky and soothing of any hotel bedrooms in the land. At the heart of the hotel is the panelled Great Hall, where a glamorous bar stretches along one wall. Read expert review From £170per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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South Sands Boutique Hotel
Salcombe, Devon, England
7Telegraph expert rating
In summer, the affluent Salcombe set flock here, and the buzzing hotel feels like a cross between a yacht club and a branch of Crew Clothing. It's breezy and easy-going, as befits a hotel on the beach. The decoration of the rooms and restaurant is in an appropriate New England style and there’s a glamorous spiral staircase. The decoration is right for the view: simple and fresh, with good bathrooms. White sands and calm seas are a beach ball’s throw from the hotel and during the school holidays, the hotel stages family events, including a summer solstice beach party. There are five beach suites designed for families of up to six. Read expert review From £95per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Cary Arms
Devon, England
8Telegraph expert rating
This delightful seaside hotel on Devon’s south coast is like a setting from a Mills and Boon romance and a Famous Five adventure rolled into one. Set beneath the cliffs on the beach at Babbacombe, near Torquay, the Cary Arms’ location is nothing short of spectacular. The present hotel was built in the late 1880s, a solid, reassuring building with a stone walled, slate floored bar at its core. There are 10 bedrooms and three self-catering cottages, all delightful, with retro red leather bed-heads, pretty wardrobes, sticks of rock on snow white pillows, and walls adorned by old posters advertising the delights of Devon and colourful yachting photographs. The latest addition to the Cary Arms’ collection are six, one-bedroom beach huts – two of them suites – all on the seafront, offering floor-to-ceiling views of the Jurassic coastline. Read expert review From £196per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Glazebrook House Hotel
South Brent, Dartmoor, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Packed with 900 vintage pieces, which are imaginatively mounted as collections on its brooding dark-grey walls, Glazebrook House is more museum-with-beds than hotel. The theme – 19th-century collectors’ home meets Alice in Wonderland – is as wacky as it sounds, yet it works, and is a brave and refreshing change to the identikit country-house hotels more usually found in these parts. Set in four acres of verdantly landscaped gardens, there’s a terrace, a whiskey and wine-tasting room, and a glamorous cocktail bar with padded walls and an extensive collection of gins. The vintage rampage continues in the hotel’s nine bedrooms, each of which house their own mini collections: video cameras, polo helmets, ink jars and dolls houses, to name just a few. Read expert review From £199per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Southernhay House
Exeter, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
A handsome colonial townhouse in central Exeter's leafy Georgian quarter with a buzzy cocktail bar and peaceful veranda. A luxurious mish-mash of styles, from Louis XV French to austere Victorian, this Georgian townhouse is suitable for anyone and everyone visiting the city who desire comfort and good location, just a few minutes’ walk to the cathedral, and a credit card’s throw from the high street. Earthy Farrow and Ball tones are mixed with brocade throws, beaded bolster cushions and antiques in rooms. Monsoon showers, double sinks and roll-top baths make washing a joy, especially in Tulip, which has a free-standing tub in the bedroom. Read expert review From £100per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Weeke Barton
Dunsford, Dartmoor, England
9Telegraph expert rating
This guesthouse, in a medieval longhouse on the eastern edge of Dartmoor, melds urban cool with rustic comfort. The owners, formerly from Hackney, have revamped the building with an East London-style makeover, retaining the building’s wonderful period features – wonky, wood-beamed walls, hefty oak doors, parquet floors, arched doorways and inglenook fireplaces – and mixing them with rustic-cool décor. This feel continues into the five bedrooms, each of which have pretty views of the grounds through latched windows. The atmosphere is relaxed, cool and homely, with a chilled soundtrack of Balearic beats, reggae or soul creating a clubby feel. Read expert review From £110per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
A wildly romantic, chintz-free country estate run by Channel 5's Hotel Inspector, Alex Polizzi. The house was built in 1812 as the Duchess of Bedford, Georgiana Russell's holiday home and is steeped in royal history. Rooms are purposefully low-tech and don't have televisions, Wi-Fi or minibars. Decorated in Regency pastiche, Room five is the winner, with original hand-painted wallpaper, poetry-inspiring views of the River Tamar and a chaise longue that’s made for swooning. Room four wins points for quirkiness: the en-suite bathroom, accessible down steep stairs, was the Duke’s chapel. The cream teas here are worth the journey alone. Read expert review From £165per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
Salcombe Harbour Hotel
Salcombe, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
In a land of nautically-themed hotels and restaurants, Salcombe Harbour stands out with its understated design that manages to steer clear of coastal kitsch, yet still exudes a fresh, seaside-chic that invites the mojito-drinking, oyster shucking and panama-hat wearing. The interior is made even more inviting by deep armchairs, huge marble fireplaces and collections of designer coffee-table books. The decadence continues throughout the hotel, with an indoor pool which has private cabanas, a sauna, hot tub, spa and private cinema complete with a vintage popcorn machine. Estuary-facing rooms come with balcony boxes containing binoculars, pashminas and blankets for alfresco lounging on the private terrace. Read expert review From £135per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
