Best Boutique B&Bs in Totnes for a Stylish Stay
Totnes does B&Bs the same way it does everything else: with personality, an eye for design, and a fierce loyalty to the producers and craftspeople just down the lane. The town has resisted the magnolia-walled chain hotel and gained instead a clutch of independently run places where breakfast is a slow, generous affair and every room tells its own story. These are the boutique B&Bs worth booking when you want the stay itself to feel like part of the trip.
Town-centre stays with serious style
The Bull Inn
Sitting at the top of the high street overlooking Rotherfold Square, The Bull Inn is the boutique B&B that put Totnes firmly on the design-led travel map. Owner Geetie Singh-Watson, the first publican to win an MBE for organic ethics, has shaped nine bedrooms that mix antique brass beds, reclaimed timber, hand-block-printed wallpapers and bathrooms tiled in moody emerald. There’s a self-catering apartment too if you want kitchen space. Doubles run roughly £130 to £210 a night with breakfast, the restaurant downstairs is one of the best meals in town, and dogs are welcome in specific rooms by arrangement. Sleeps two per room, open year-round, and you can roll out of bed straight onto the high street.
The Old Forge at Totnes
Tucked into a quiet lane five minutes’ walk from the centre, The Old Forge is a Grade II listed 600-year-old former smithy turned ten-room boutique B&B. Many rooms have their own garden terrace or patio, the breakfast room opens onto a walled garden, and there’s a small heated pool and sauna. Doubles from around £120, open all year, two-night minimum at weekends, and the riverside walks along the Dart start almost from the front door.
Riverside character and country views
The Great Grubb
Run for over fifteen years by Sandra and John on Plymouth Road, The Great Grubb is the kind of B&B that builds a returning fan club. Three pretty bedrooms, breakfasts that lean hard on local Devon producers, and a hosting style that genuinely treats you like a guest rather than a booking reference. Doubles from about £110, ten minutes’ walk from the high street, open year-round, no dogs. It’s a regular Tripadvisor favourite for a reason.
Steam Packet Inn
If you want to wake up watching the tide turn on the River Dart, the Steam Packet on St Peter’s Quay has six rooms above its conservatory restaurant. Rooms are simple and traditional rather than design-magazine slick, but the location is unbeatable: barges drift past your window, town is a five-minute riverside stroll, and the food is hearty pub-with-ambition cooking. Doubles from around £100 including breakfast, dogs welcome in the bar and on the terrace, open all year.
Country-house B&Bs within easy reach
Kerswell Farmhouse
For couples who want the boutique feel with sweeping rural views, Kerswell Farmhouse sits roughly fifteen minutes’ drive from Totnes between the town and Dartmouth. The 400-year-old South Devon longhouse has been restored with a contemporary art collection on the walls, four immaculate rooms, and fourteen acres of grounds with views towards Dartmoor. Breakfasts use eggs from the resident hens. Doubles from around £160, open March to October, adults-only, no dogs in the house.
Kilbury Manor
Heading the other way, Kilbury Manor in Buckfastleigh is a 17th-century listed Devon longhouse in four acres of grounds, with the South Devon Railway and the Dart running behind. Four rooms split between the main house and a converted barn, AA award-winning breakfasts, and a hosts-with-stories warmth that makes it feel less like a B&B and more like staying with friends who happen to have very good linen. Doubles around £130 to £150, open most of the year, dogs by arrangement in the barn rooms.
How to choose between them
If you want to fall out of bed into a great restaurant, book The Bull Inn. If you want a quiet town stay with garden, The Old Forge. For warm hospitality on a budget, The Great Grubb. For the river right outside, the Steam Packet. For a countryside escape, pick between Kerswell for adults-only polish or Kilbury for relaxed manor-house ease. All six trade year-round or for most of the year, all are independently run, and all sit within fifteen minutes of Totnes high street.
When to visit and what to expect
Totnes is genuinely a year-round town. Spring brings wild garlic carpeting the riverside woods, vineyards opening for tours and the first markets warming up. Summer is the festival peak, with Totnes Festival across late August and an art trail in early autumn. Winter has its own charm: Christmas Day swims at Stoke Gabriel, gallery openings and a low-tide light that makes the river look like pewter. The boutique B&Bs above all stay open year-round (Kerswell aside), so picking a quieter month often gives you better rooms at better rates.
Book direct where you can. Independent operators like these keep more of the room rate when you skip the booking platforms, and a quick phone call often unlocks a quieter room, a later check-in, or the local insider tips you came to Totnes for in the first place. Most owners will happily organise a vineyard visit, a guided river kayak hire, a Dartington estate ticket or a dinner reservation if you mention what kind of weekend you’re after when you confirm.