A selection of a few adventures and days out around Devon and beyond.
Geocaching around Arlington Court.
Seeing as we have a National Trust membership again, we decided to look at NT places to visit this weekend. After a quick search, we decided on Arlington Court as it’s dog friendly, has lots of lovely walks around the estate, and has lots of geocaches too!
Arlington Court is a National Trust Estate in North Devon, close to Exmoor. We arrived there yesterday around 2pm. As we were arriving, we saw signs about a Christmas market happening this weekend on the estate. Something we didn’t know about. We soon saw how busy it was going to be, when we saw how full the car park was!
We decided to have a quick look around the Christmas market, even though Jo exclaimed; ‘It’s too early for Christmas: I’ve not had my birthday yet!’ The market stalls were actually pretty good, better than I expected, as they had quite a lot of unique and handmade gifts and decorations, not like the usual Christmas markets you’ll find dotted around towns and cities. After looking around the stalls, we decided to give in to the smell of the BBQ and have our last BBQ burger of the year, along with my first mulled wine of the year!
Once we had filled our bellies, we pressed on to follow a circular woodland walk that surrounds the estate which was mapped out through our geocaching app. For those of you that want to know more about geocaching, it really is worth checking out their website geocaching.com. It’s great fun for children and adults, and it’s made us discover places we didn’t know existed! We even bumped into a geocacher doing his first ever cache with his young son, who beat us to the geocache we wanted to find! We ended up having a quick chat with him about the caches we’ve done, and gave out some tips on some of the place we’ve discovered fun geocaches his son will probably enjoy. The geocaches we did on this walk were linked to National Trust and took us through woodland, farmland and along the river. We walked about 6 miles in total.
It wasn’t long before we had quite a few caches found, this route had some really great cache containers, including the ammo case above. Geocaching is great for kids that love swapping bits and bobs, it’s like a real life treasure hunt. I’ve found over 500 caches over the years! It’s also free to do, and doesn’t require using your data whilst out and about.
We first walked past a beautiful lake and church by the Arlington Estate, this lead us into some woodland that ran along side a river. Throughout most of the walk, we followed the river around, crossing over a few old stone bridges along the way. This walk was quite steep and strenuous in places, and wasn’t wheelchair/buggy friendly. But of course there are plenty of other walks around the estate to enjoy, that are suitable for everyone. There are maps and leaflets in the National Trust entrance/shop to check out the walks you can do. All these walks are clearly marked out along the routes by public footpath signage. So it would be hard to get lost!
We didn’t manage to find all the geocaches on this route, as the sun was starting to set, so we tried to press on and do the ones we could find quickly, but not stop to search for too long. By the time we had arrived back at the car park, it was rather dark, and the car park was no longer busy, with only a couple of cars still parked in it. We will probably come back and visit again soon, I’d love to see the house and the carriage museum. There seems to be so many beautiful walks surrounding this estate, and a lot of history about the estate I need to read up on. This walk really was lovely in Autumn, crunching through the fallen leaves, and walking alongside the flowing rivers and little waterfalls. Well worth a visit, and maybe try geocaching whilst you’re there?
National Trust Stourhead
You’ll find not all the places I post will be Devon based, including this one…Stourhead…
The beautiful lake is one of the main features of Stourhead. Especially in Autumn.
Stourhead is a beautiful National Trust estate. Based in Wiltshire, famous for its landscaped gardens, stunning lake and Palladian estate. There are plenty of walks to do around the gardens. We visited on Sunday 11th November. If like us, you like to take your dog for days out too, then check when you are visiting. Stourhead does allow dogs into the landscaped garden area but you do need to check what times. During the summer months Dogs aren’t allowed in until after 4pm, in November, they can come in after 3pm. And all day from December - February.
We arrived at Stourhead by 2pm. A little too early to enter the gardens with our 4 legged friend. So we decided to do a walk to King Alfreds Tower. This is another beautiful walk on the Stourhead estate, which is very dog friendly. There is plenty of free parking around the area and easy to follow signs and maps. You may pass monuments along the way, walking through woodland and breathtaking countryside views. The main focal point of this walk is of course King Alfred’s tower, a stunning grade I listed triangular folly tower.
Once we had done the King Alfred walk. We then went back to the main National Trust car park at Stourhead. You do have to pay to enter the estate and gardens, but in my opinion it is worth it! We have a joint NT membership which is well worth the money. We headed straight towards the lake at Stourhead, the main reason I wanted to visit. It was just as beautiful as I was hoping it would be! Especially in the Autumn glowing light just before sunset.
We decided to walk all around the lake, which took us about an hour, as I was stopping to take in the stunning autumnal colours reflecting on the lake, as well as exploring the different buildings and the grotto that surrounds the lake.
If you’re wanting to visit this National Trust estate, I recommend you give yourself at least half a day to explore the whole area. Unfortunately we ran out of time, so we didn’t get to visit the rest of the gardens, shops or mansion. So we will definitely be visiting again! There is also a pump house next to the lake, which has a waterfall running beside it. Everywhere you look there is something beautiful to admire.
There is also a charming pub and courtyard between the estate and the lake called ‘Spread Eagle Inn’. We didn’t get time to stop and have anything to eat or drink here, but we definitely want to next time, it looked really cosy! As we were walking towards the lake I noticed some country cottages owned by the national trust, which appeared to be holiday let cottages.
The Lovely Cottages
Autumn in all its glory
Despite the drizzle, the rain managed to hold off for our day out. And whilst we were walking towards King Alfred’s Tower, we noticed a double rainbow! Just adding to the beauty around us!
A double rainbow at Stourhead
Stourhead was very busy on the November Sunday we visited, we struggled to find a car parking space at first. So do plan ahead and arrive early, especially if you’re visiting in the Summer or a weekend. I’m sure we will be back soon to explore the rest of the estate, and to view the gardens and lake in a different Season.