Sweetcombe Cottages

STAY NEAR THE DONKEYS

I finally found my booking details of where I stayed when I visited The Donkey Sactuary in Devon. I promised @molometer that I was going to post about it and show some photos, so here goes.

It's not actually easy to pin-point the exact cottage I stayed in online, which is probably one of the best ones there, because they are managed individually by their owners. Basically there is a kind of cottage village on the same land, but they're not managed by the same person or company. As such, each cottage, even though they look the same on the outside, may end up having completely different decors and amenities inside. They probably don't cost the same to stay either.

I had peek into some of them, as most of them were empty when I was there, and the interior of each cottage was completely different from the next. The owner of my one went for a full-on colourful decor. The weather was bright outside, so the colours made it seem as though I was somewhere in Spain or Italy - strong yellows, oranges, and lime greens. Some people would probably find it overwhelming, and I'd normally prefer muted colours too, but it somehow worked and I liked it. It made a great backdrop for many videos I created there too.

I actually forgot to take photos of the exterior area, which is strange since I photograph everything usually, but there is a photo of it online. It's quite nice when it's well kept, like the online photos but, when I was there, the grass, shrubs and hedges were all overgrown. It felt like the area had been neglected or abandoned actually. Having said that, the actual cottage was very nice.. and affordable - probably due to the low traffic and lack of external maintenance.

It had all the basic stuff, including a little fridge-freezer, cooking hub, oven, microwave, kettle, TV, CD player, e.t.c., but the audio-visual stuff was quite dated in a charming way. There were CDs, DVDs and books available. Old school stuff :). I actually watched A Bug's Life on the DVD player just for nostalgia sake. When I first saw it 25 years ago, DVDs were quite fancy back then. I loved the movie back then, but I think I might have loved it even more this time round because I picked up a lot of things I missed the first time. It's always like that when I watch back vintage movies.

The best part of this cottage is that it walking distance from The Donkey Sactuary. In fact, it feels as though you are staying on the sanctuary itself because you can hear the donkeys as though they were just over the fence. Getting to the sanctuary entrance is but a 3 minute walk, so it's the perfect place to stay.

There are no shops in the area, as it's a rural setting. The sanctuary, however, has everything you need - a shop, two cafes, a restaurant and other such things. I'm willing to bet the rural folk there actually use the sanctuary as some kind of make-shift shop instead of having to drive 15-20 minutes to the closest grocery shop.

I'd say it's great for families and is dog friendly too. Mind you, there are signs asking people to keep dogs on a leash. I've included a link below for anyone that want's to check it out. I have no affiliate with them.

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🏠 Self Catering in Sidmouth Breezes (Sweetcombe Cottages)

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Peace & Love,

Adé