devoted TO DEVON
Old-fashioned pleasures await at this seaside classic, discovers MARK PALMER
tHERE can’t be many hotels in modern Britain where the jacket required rule at dinner lives on. But, then, the Thurlestone turned its back on modern Britain decades ago. It comes as a shock at first, not least because the building is far from pretty. ‘How would you describe it?’ I ask the general manager.
‘A mish-mash,’ should be his response. But he just shakes his head, knowingly.
Over a period of more than 120 years, the Thurlestone, on the South Hams coast in Devon, has had bits and pieces added on: rooms with balconies, a glass-enclosed dining room that looks and feels like a cruise ship canteen, a concrete terrace, a swimming pool in 1963, and in 2012, a spa.
‘Gosh,’ says my wife, as we pull up for a long weekend with our two twentysomethings. I think the same as we approach a Crossroads-style reception desk, where the wallpaper and carpet clash defiantly.
There’s a whiff of cleaning product as we enter our room, the instructions with the TV are incomprehensible and you have to call reception to find out the wi-fi password.
Yet, within a few hours, our petty urban grievances have been dissolved by the bigger picture, and we’re actually pleased there are still places where a leisurely afternoon tea is taken far more seriously than super-swift broadband, where multi-generational families return year after year, where hospitality is a pleasure, rather than a chore, and where there is so much to do — even if it’s pelting with rain.
There’s inside and outside pools, a nine-hole pitch-and-putt, two pristine tennis courts, a couple of squash courts and one for badminton, an adventure playground, croquet lawn, immaculate gardens and beaches galore. Harry Secombe used to love it here.
At the heart of it all is the famous Thurlestone Rock in the bay below the village — an arched stone created naturally over thousands of years. It’s a thrilling sight. The village is thrilling,
too, in a nostalgic sort of way. Admirably, there’s an original Gilbert Scott telephone box, which serves as a lending library. There’s also a pretty church, a shop and a post office.
The village pub, like the hotel, has been owned by the local Grose family since 1896.
Pippa Middleton called in recently for just the one before a wedding at the church.
Walking to Bantham Beach is an unadulterated joy, with sheer drops on one side, the Thurlestone Golf Club on the other and magnificent Burgh Island straight ahead, a favourite of Agatha Christie and Noel Coward.
At low tide, the bay becomes a series of shallow, sandy paddling pools perfect for toddlers and grannies alike. We notice a long queue at the back of the beach and, like good Britons, join it.
This is the Gastrobus, serving exceptional food (chorizo and egg brioche, posh burgers, ‘gastrodogs’, ice-cream) with free lessons in patience thrown in.
We queue for half an hour and then it’s a further 30 minutes before our number is called. No one’s complaining. It’s the way it is. You can walk in the other direction all the way to Salcombe if you want to know how the yachty crowd likes to live. But after an hour or so there, we begin to miss being enveloped by Thurlestone’s easy-going charm.
If I ever have grandchildren, I shall bring them here for a cultural experience of the kind unavailable almost anywhere else in the country.
I suspect the jacket rule might change in the next 50 years — but not much else, thank goodness.
TRAVEL FACTS
THE Thurlestone Hotel (thurlestone.
co.uk, 01548 560382) offers double rooms from £230 B&B per night in September and October and up to £295 in July and August, based on two adults sharing a sea-view room.