A Quintessential Thatched Village

One of the many charms of Devon is the number of villages containing thatched cottages and pubs. Otterton, Newton Poppleford and Chidmouth, to name just a few, are full of them. For a North American, streets lined with these cottages just don't look real - more like a set for a movie!  Today, we drove to the coastal village of Branscombe situated between Lyme Regis and Salcombe Regis for our lunch.  It has been a year since I've driven on the extremely narrow lanes Devon is famous for (or is that infamous?) and they always provide quite a challenge (meeting a very large Land Rover on a single track was quite a thrill today!).  Anyway, I didn't get to take many pictures on the way there as stopping on these roads isn't easy.  It would have been wonderful to record the flower bedecked cottages and the Devon patchwork fields but . . . well, that will have to wait for another time. We did stop for lunch at the Masons Arms, an adorable partially thatched pub in the village, and had lunch sitting outside on the patio in the warm sunshine. It's tough to beat a homemade chicken liver and wild mushroom terrine served with fig chutney and, as well, have two Beardies (my favourite dog) laying under the table beside you. So, as I didn't get pictures of the quintessential thatched cottages, the photos at the pub will have to do.

The next question, now that I'm back in Budleigh, is do I really need another cream tea?  Perhaps not!