About Lower Whitsleigh Farm

Lower Whitsleigh Farm was originally built around 300 years ago. For most of its life it has been a working dairy farm, originally sited in over 400 acres. As we understand it, previous owners ceased dairy farming after the catastrophic UK Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001. The majority of the land was sold off, just retaining the 17 acres directly around the farm. The farming function was diversified and the old milking parlour was converted around 2006, into the Lower Whitsleigh Farm Holiday Cottage.

Your hosts at the cottage are Sam & Andy, Rufus our friendly ex-guide dog, Daphne & Delilah (our two rescue donkeys) the Tamworth Piglets, rabbits and our ex-battery hens. Between us, we aim to make your stay enjoyable, relaxing, rewarding and entertaining. We love animals and guests are more than welcome to bring their dogs. We do insist that they stay downstairs though (there is a stairgate for this purpose), so we can keep the cottage and glamping lodge in tip-top condition.

After spending most of our lives in rural North Essex, we decided to move here for a more sedate Devon way of life and raise our children in a cleaner, fresher, more outdoor and spacious environment.

Whilst celebrating a milestone birthday we pitched a marquee, hired a band, built a fire pit and invited all our friends from near and far to come join us, pitch up tents or bring camper vans in the meadow. It was a magical moment, everyone just loved being here. We realised then that we had this wonderful location, it blew us away how lovely it was, it was time to start enjoying the land, so we stopped renting it out, reclaimed it as our amazing space and set up Lower Whitsleigh Farm Glamping to run beside our award winning self-catering cottage.

The decision to only build one Luxury Safari Lodge has also added a very special and hard to find luxury of space, 17 acres of AONB, no cars, just nature, just you.

Come and immerse yourself in nature in our Lodge built with a touch of quirky luxury where you can rejuvenate, re-charge and spend quality time with your family or friends.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. We are also planning to add more animals to our collection and encourage guests to interact and help feed them during their stay should they wish to do so.

Come and meet us!

Much love the team at Lower Whitsleigh Farm Hastings Family, Daphne & Delilah (our rescue donkeys) our ex-battery hens, 4 piglets & ex-guide dog Rufus!.

Donkeys

Daphne (brown and white) & Delilah (hairier grey one) are both rescues from the Donkey sanctuary in Sidmouth. They have been with us since 2014, moving down from Essex in 2018. They are still quite young (Donkeys live up to around 60 years), estimated to have been born in 2012. Both are very friendly, gentle and love attention. They are very inquisitive and you’ll find two noses over your wall if you are outside! Feel free to pet them or go into the field with them but, as with any animal, please be careful around them and avoid approaching from behind or quick movements / loud noises which may spook them. Both adore the odd carrot, apple and their absolute favourite things are ginger biscuits, but please, not too much and mind fingers! They get very territorial with regards to dogs, so please keep pets out of their field.

The Resident Dog

Rufus our black lab/retriever (withdrawn guide dog) will be happy to dispose of any/all food leftovers but, despite what he may have you think, he is well fed and we would like to discourage his scrounging! Please dispose of food waste along with the non-recyclables. He is safe around children and animals but we do our best to discourage him from pestering guests (we understand not everyone likes dogs!) but he, like the donkeys, loves company and meeting anyone in the holiday let (he’s figured out he sometimes gets treats). Please let us know if he is bothering you!

Chickens

We’ve been keeping ‘rescue’ (ex battery / cage) hens for around 12 years now and have given over 50 girls a free range retirement. That also has the added bonus of lots of delicious fresh eggs. The hens are all very friendly – let us know if you’d like to meet them!

Bees

We started bee keeping 2 years ago and brought our hives of bees with us to Devon. The plan is to expand our colonies to increase the number of these amazing and important creatures in our environment. The Bees are to the back of the big hay barn – they have little interest in people and will not bother you, however please ensure children and pets don’t interfere with the hives and this can, understandably irritate them – Bee stings can hurt !!

Pigs

Come and meet our Tamworth pigs, mischievous and playful they love nothing more than a tummy tickle!

Wild Life And Neighbouring Animals

Surrounded by open fields, woodland and panoramic views of rolling North Devon countryside with views of both Dartmoor & Exmoor. We have an abundance of natural wildlife to observe. A haven for bird watchers, photographers & artists. We are surrounded by acres of woodland and pasture which are home to sheep, cows, lambing in Spring, chickens,,guinea fowl and much more wildlife, rabbits, pheasants, buzzards, kestrels, badgers and even deer in the early morning.