An Elephant on Dartmoor
An early Spring break took us to one of my favourite parts of England – the South West and I would thoroughly recommend the pub we stayed in.
We were staying in the tiny village of Horndon, just north of Tavistock in Devon, on the western tip of Dartmoor. We stayed at the unusually named Elephant’s Rest, which apparently was named after a previous rather portly landlord who weighed in at 20+ stone and who served his customers by swivelling around on a stool behind the bar. One of his regulars told him he looked like an elephant sitting on a nest, and so the pub was re-named.
The dinner menu was very English and the pub prides itself on only using locally sourced fresh produce, including locally farmed beef, pork and lamb, fish delivered fresh every day from St. Ives and cheeses from Tavistock. I can never resist a Steak & Kidney pudding and mine certainly lived up to expectations.
Breakfast next day was exceptional (recommend the sausages) and it was also accompanied by visits from the pub’s dog Bertie, a Glen of Imaal Terrier, who looked like a teddy bear in doggy form. His party trick on realising there were sausages around, was to sit up on his back legs and look longingly at your plate – he didn’t have any luck with us though, it was all too delicious to give away! So now fully fuelled up I was taken on a bracing long hike across Dartmoor where we encountered troupes of students practising for the Ten Tors and preparing to camp out on the moor (it was 3˚C during the day!). They seemed scarily excited about the prospect while all I could think of was getting back to the log fire in the bar at The Elephant’s Nest!