Dartington Hall: A Day at the Arts, Gardens and Performance Estate

If you spend a day at Dartington Hall, you are likely to come away with the slightly disoriented feeling of having visited four different places at once. The estate is at the same time a 14th-century courtyard hall, a 26-acre Grade II* listed garden, a working farm with a food hub, an arts and education centre with a cinema and theatre programme, and a Devon walking site with deer park trails along the River Dart. It is run by the Dartington Trust, sits two miles outside Totnes, and is one of the few places in the South Hams where you can easily fill a day without driving anywhere else.

The hall and the courtyard

The medieval Great Hall, with its hammerbeam roof, was originally built in the late 1300s for John Holand, half-brother to Richard II. By the 1920s the estate had fallen into ruin, and the Elmhirsts, Dorothy and Leonard, bought it and set about an extraordinary rescue project that wove together rural regeneration, progressive education and the arts. The courtyard you walk into today is essentially their legacy: restored medieval stonework on three sides, with the modern Elmhirst Heritage Centre tucked into the entrance buildings as the visitor’s first stop.

The Heritage Centre opened recently and is worth half an hour. It tells the story of the Elmhirst project, the international cast of artists, scientists and refugees who passed through, and the school of progressive education that ran here until 1987. There is usually a temporary exhibition running alongside the permanent display.

The gardens

The gardens are the reason most first-time visitors come, and they live up to their reputation. The medieval Tiltyard, a long sunken lawn flanked by yew, is the showpiece. A Henry Moore reclining figure sits at one end, surrounded by terraces of clipped Irish yew that look almost surreal. From there, gravel paths wander down through specimen trees, magnolia walks, woodland glades and a stretch of the River Dart at the bottom of the estate. The whole circuit is about a mile of gentle walking, with plenty of benches.

Gardens open year-round, 9am to 5pm daily. Free guided tours run on Fridays at 11am from early March to October, included with garden admission. Adult day tickets are around £10, children under 16 go free, and an annual pass is excellent value at around £35 if you live within striking distance. RHS members get free entry on selected days.

Cinema, theatre and live music

The Barn Cinema, tucked away in a converted estate building, programmes an unusually thoughtful mix of arthouse, world cinema, classics and recent independent releases. Tickets are around £10, the bar opens an hour before screenings, and the auditorium has the most comfortable seats of any cinema in the south west.

The Great Hall doubles as a concert venue. Dartington’s Summer School of Music, an internationally regarded programme of recitals, masterclasses and chamber concerts, runs across four weeks in July and August, and the autumn programme runs everything from folk to jazz to contemporary classical. The whatson.dartington.org calendar is your friend here, since the live programme changes constantly.

Eating, drinking and the Cider Press Centre

Food on the estate is taken seriously. The White Hart pub inside the courtyard does pub classics built around the estate’s own farm produce, and the Green Table cafe in the gardens entrance serves coffee, lunch and very good cakes. For shopping, the Dartington Cider Press Centre, a few minutes’ walk across the estate, gathers craft shops, a bookshop, a kitchenware specialist and the Cranks-inspired Venus Cafe under one roof. It is the kind of place where you go in for a coffee and come out with a bag of Devon cheese and a copy of a poetry pamphlet.

Practical tips

• Parking is free for visitors, with a large car park signposted off the A385 between Totnes and Buckfastleigh.
• Allow a full day if you want to do the gardens, the Heritage Centre, lunch and the Cider Press Centre together. A half day works if you skip one or two.
• Accessibility is reasonable. The courtyard, Heritage Centre and Cider Press are step-free; the gardens have gravel paths and some steep sections, but the Tiltyard and top terraces are manageable for wheelchairs.
• Dogs on leads are welcome in the gardens.
• The Deer Park trail is a longer walk (about three miles) and is free; pick up a map at the Heritage Centre.

The pleasure of Dartington Hall is that it never feels like a packaged attraction. You can come for a film, stay for dinner, see a Henry Moore in passing, and walk back to your car through a meadow full of deer. If you are basing yourself in Totnes for a weekend, Dartington pairs naturally with a riverside walk or a Sunday wander through the town’s independent shops. Our guide to Family Days Out From Totnes covers a few more options if you have children to keep happy.