Room Description: Taw

Overview

A really charming room on the first floor with a corner window overlooking the Mill End garden.  The room has a double bed and a comfortable armchair by the corner window. The bathroom is spacious with a large bath fitted with a shower.

Room Amenities and Facilities

> Room type: Standard Double

> Garden Wing, first floor

> Corner window with views across the rear garden and towards the leat

> Double bed

> Ironing board and iron

> Tea and coffee making facilities (with fresh milk if you prefer)

> Home made biscuits on arrival

> Room service (not 24 hours)

> Flat-screen LCD television (some of our TV’s have an integrated DVD player, although this can’t be guaranteed)

> Direct-dial phone

> En-suite with bath and shower

> Luxury toiletries from White Company – shampoo, conditioner, bath gel and body lotion

About the River Taw

All our rooms are named after Dartmoor rivers.

Unlike most of Devon’s rivers, the River Taw runs broadly north rather than south.  It rises at Taw Head, a spring on the northern edge of Dartmoor, and after 45 miles joins the open waters of the Bristol Channel just downstream of the North Devon market town of Barnstaple.

Close to its source, not far from Mill End, the Taw (which is just a stream at this stage) gives its name to the villages of South Tawton and North Tawton – the latter being the adopted home town of late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes.

The Taw’s most striking character is found in its lower reaches, where the river widens dramatically as it passes through Barnstaple, and where daily tidal variations of up to 6 metres are common.  Just before entering the Bristol Channel, the Taw flanks Braunton Burrows, an enormous area of spectacular sand dunes which has been designated both a Unesco Biosphere Reserve and a Special Area of Conservation.

The lower reaches of the Taw can be enjoyed from the Tarka Trail, a 30 mile long cycle trail which uses the old railway track-beds of North Devon.