Monocles not being compulsory anymore and cummerbunds no longer de rigeur, you are still free to indulge in some wanton egg snobbery and one-upmanship on your quintessential British country home getaway.
The gentleman in the dining room spoke loudly more for the benefit of his fellow breakfasters than the waitress. “It’s got to be a poached Light Sussex this morning. So don’t try and get a Columbian Black Tail or a Maran Cuivree past me.”
Equally loudly, my mobile phone pressed to my ear, I responded by supplying landing coordinates to my imaginary private helicopter pilot. “50.796511, 3.774518. Bow near Crediton, mid-Devon. You can land near the giant chessboard. Sadly, our game was postponed due to a waterlogged board. Alas, the Viscountess suffered a bad hernia lifting her knight.”
As well as a chance to show off, Paschoe House in Devon offers a very relaxing boutique country house estate experience. It doesn’t attempt to compete with the stately big boys like Cliveden. Or Gidleigh Park. Grand in an understated way, it has 25 acres, the perquisite boot room housing a selection of complimentary insulated Burford’s wellies, warnings about low door thresholds, goosedown pillows, double-sink bathrooms with underfloor heating, butterfly Design Guild and Sanderson wallpapering, Raffles-resistant safeboxes, a spectacular antler chandelier and miscellaneous stuffed fauna, including a taxidermised half an ostrich called Cyril above the library bar fireplace.
“Cyril was commissioned by London-based taxidermist ‘Get Stuffed!’,” says owner Tabitha Fern, who grew up in the Gothic Tudor house built by the man responsible for Blundell’s School, Tiverton and Pembroke College Oxford’s chapel. It used to be owned by an antique dealer and then a farmer before being bought by a banker with an interest in the sciences.
Its library must contain the most unreadable books in any hotel. You are free to browse D.H. Everett’s riveting epic Chemical Thermal Dynamics, the absorbing masterpiece, Wicksteed’s The Common Sense of Political Economy and Volumes 1-18 of the great page-turner, The Freisian Herd Handbook (Bulls).
Nostalgics will enjoy the brown furniture and 13th century fireplace. Vegans may not be too fond of the dead badger in the bar or the fox corpse curled up in the morning room. Taxidermy is an acquired taste. Activists might daub the hunting prints.
The rooms are named after woodland animals. We had the Bat room. A sumptuously converted attic. On the wall outside is a framed dead hairless bat impaled seemingly while performing a star jump.
The rooms are named after woodland animals
Local artisanal gins like Dominic and Accica O’nions ‘Thunderflower’ from Teignmouth (named after stonecrop flowers growing on thatched cottage roofs said to wear off witches), and thatcher Adam and ex-teacher Claire Hyne’s ‘Papillon’ from Moretonhampstead are served with bespoke garnishes like lemon and lavender and orange twist and roast liquorice. The four-star hotel also provides homemade popcorn to those watching its pay-for latest releases channel.
In Craig Davies and his French sous-chef Sammy, Paschoe has found the best three rosette and Michelin Guide country hotel chefs. Their £50=80 tasting menu features Creedy Carver duck with blackberries, foie gras, macadamia and shiitake mushroom and sweet potato ravioli, stone bass and Baerii caviar.
Not far from Exeter, Paschoe House is on the Two Moors Path, which connects the county’s north and south coasts. You can explore thatched villages, Sir Francis Drake’s birthplace and the seaside towns of Exmouth and Sidmouth as well as Dartmoor. You can enjoy a ‘Heavenly Honeycomb’ or gin sorbet ice cream on the Exmouth esplanade.
P. G. Wodehouse eulogised “the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured cosiness,” offered by Britain’s grand houses. So often such genteel retreats are mausoleums for the living, but Paschoe House gets the atmosphere right. It doesn’t intimidate. The only time anyone rushes is to get the window seat for breakfast and the freshest and most picturesque kippers.
The rebuilt hotel opened after a £1.1 million refurbishment, and has a stylish glasshouse wedding venue, as well as tennis court and rebuilt Victorian walled garden. It was originally situated lakeside.
The feudal spirit is revived by general factotums, serfs, footmen and valets, Bulgarian Yordan and Matthew. They will shake your cocktails, come bearing restoratives and give the impression that, being at your daily disposal, they would be happy to iron your Times and press your Country Life for you, prior to perusal.
Paschoe is perfect for a status-enhancing escape.
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Surrounding Paschoe House is a world of outdoor adventure. Left: Christmas at Paschoe House