A Cozy 3-Day Somerset and Devon Escape for Winter Walks and Hedgerow Feasts

Frost clings to the stone lintels in Bruton as the day begins, the High Street still quiet enough that you can hear your own boots on the pavement. Inside Matt’s Kitchen the windows fog gently, the smell of coffee and toasted sourdough wrapping around you like a scarf while low voices and clinking cutlery set a soft soundtrack. By late morning you’re trading town for theatre at Stourhead, where bare branches frame that impossibly composed lake and the sound is just gravel underfoot and the occasional crow. Lunch back in Bruton at Briar feels like someone’s very stylish farmhouse kitchen: seasonal plates, candlelight even at noon, and the sense that the chef is cooking for the weather, not a concept. The afternoon slows further at Ebbor Gorge, where the path is slick with leaf mulch and the limestone walls rise damp and mossy, smelling faintly of earth and wet stone. You return to Bruton pleasantly tired, cheeks stung pink from the air, ready for the quiet ritual of Osip’s tasting menu—course after course of Somerset on a plate. Later, a drink at The Copper Kettle in Dulverton brings you deeper into Exmoor country: low ceilings, the warmth of other people’s conversations, and that particular contentment that comes when you know tomorrow is all about the moor.

Morning in Dulverton arrives with the sound of tyres on wet tarmac and the smell of woodsmoke drifting over the River Barle. At the Exmoor National Park Centre the mood is almost hushed, like a briefing room for the day’s weather: OS maps spread on tables, rangers quietly explaining which paths are flooded and where the ponies have been seen. By late morning you’re out in it, driving up towards Webbers Post where the moor rolls away in muted browns and purples and the air tastes of peat and cold metal. The soundscape is pared back to wind in the gorse and the occasional call of a crow. Lunch at The Copper Kettle is all steam and clatter—tea poured from heavy pots, plates of pie and cake, the smell of toast and jam cutting through the damp wool of your jumper. The afternoon is gentle: a wander around the Exmoor House Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite and the National Park office next door, seeing how people choose to live with this landscape for longer than a weekend, then a slow drink at Woods Bar & Restaurant as the light fades, the bar filling with locals and dogs shaking off the rain. As you head back through the dark, the moor feels different: less wild, more like a neighbour you’ve finally been properly introduced to, and tomorrow’s shift to Devon’s softer edges feels like a natural exhale.

By day three the rhythm of slow mornings and long lunches is set, and Exeter offers a city-scale version of the same mood. At Fika the air smells of cardamom and butter, the counter lined with cinnamon buns that look like they’ve been tied by hand—which, judging by the baking classes, they have. Outside, the Exe runs quiet and grey, but inside the light is soft and Scandinavian, all pale wood and the low hiss of the coffee machine. Late morning you walk or drive out to Barton Place Farm Shop, where the cold air hits your face as you step into a world of stacked produce and the faint, sweet-sour aroma of apples and stored vegetables. Lunch at Babylon back in the city is a contrast: deep, warm colours, Middle Eastern spices blooming in hot oil, and staff who talk about the menu like they wrote it as a love letter. The afternoon drifts into a visit to Dartmoor National Park, the moorland here broader and more open than Exmoor, the wind a little sharper, the granite underfoot harder and older. Back in Exeter, Stage turns dinner into a quietly theatrical event—set menus, unknown next courses, and staff who seem genuinely delighted to talk you through each one—before you end the trip underground at Rendezvous Wine Bar. Down in the brick-vaulted cellar, with a glass of something local in hand and the walled garden just visible beyond, the whole three days compress into one feeling: warm, slightly flushed, and reluctant to go back to normal time.