HEART TO DART

IT'S EASY TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THIS HISTORIC DARTMOOR CASTLE, AS RUTH MOSALSKI DISCOVERS

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THERE are times when there is nothing better for the soul than to just sit back and soak in what's around you - and there are few finer places to slow down than in the grounds of Dartmoor’s five-star Bovey Castle.

As I sat sipping tea in the sun-shine on our room's balcony in the September warmth, perfectly mani-cured gardens stretched out in front of me, with the hills of Dartmoor framing a picture perfect fore-ground. What a tonic.

You've barely crossed on to Dart-moor National Park when you turn off the road into the winding drive that takes you to the main hotel building. That itself is vast, and something of a mix between Downton Abbey and a grand mansion house setting from an Agatha Christie novel.

The exterior has all the Gothic drama you'd expect from an early 20th-century building, but inside there are Art deco touches that take you to a totally different time, showing just some of the incarnations this building has had.

In 1890, William Henry Smith - later of WH Smith high-street sta-tionery shop fame - purchased 5,000 acres of land, and it was his son, Frederick, who went on to build the lavish neo-Elizabethan manor house for his family.

In the First World War, it was used as a convalescent home for army officers, before being sold in 1928 to the Great Western Railway who turned it into a golfing hotel.