Holnicote Estate

Holnicote Estate takes in some 10,000 acres of Exmoor, from the shingle of Bossington Beach to Dunkery Beacon, the moor's highest point, along with 14 tenant farms and 168 cottages. It came to the Acland family in the 1700s when the heiress Elizabeth Dyke married Sir Thomas Acland, and in 1944 Sir Richard Dyke Acland gave it to the National Trust with Killerton in Devon, one of the largest gifts of land the charity has received. The cairn on Dunkery's Bronze Age burial mound marks an earlier gift of 1935. Horner Wood, a National Nature Reserve of ancient oaks, is rich in lichens and bats; Selworthy has thatched cottages; Allerford keeps its 15th-century packhorse bridge and a working forge; and Stoke Pero church is the highest on Exmoor. More than 300 red deer roam the hills, best seen from Webber's Post and Cloutsham Fields, and some 150 miles of footpaths and bridleways serve walkers, riders and cyclists. Holnicote House is run as a hotel, and reviewers who stay there praise it as a friendly base for exploring Exmoor.