Burgh Island

Top choice


Pack your dinner jacket or flapper frock: at gorgeous, glamorous art-deco Burgh Island, guests definitely dress for dinner. The gleaming-white palace sits gracefully on its own tidal island, and the guest list includes Agatha Christie (who penned And Then There Were None here), Noel Coward, 'Fruity' Metcalfe and Josephine Baker. Period-style rooms are frankly fabulous and have sublime views.

Expect 1930s-style sofas and fabrics, plus geometric rugs, slipper baths and retro radios. It's perfect for cocktails and croquet, and feeling delightfully marooned.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Burgh Island

0.04 MILES

A slanting 10-hectare chunk of grass-topped rock, tidal Burgh Island is connected to Bigbury-on-Sea by a stretch of sand at low tide. At high water the…

2. Bantham Beach

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Bantham is, arguably, South Devon's finest low-tide beach. Set at the mouth of the River Avon, this dune-backed sweep of sand offers a cool cafe, surf…

3. Cookworthy Museum of Rural Life

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An engaging collection of school desks, cooking ranges, wagons and ploughs, plus a particularly fine photographic archive.

4. North Sands

6.21 MILES

Compact North Sands lies a short walk or drive (1.5 miles) south along Cliff Rd from the centre of Salcombe (on the same side of the estuary as the town)…

5. South Sands

6.27 MILES

Although it gets busy in the summer holidays, South Sands has immense charm. It's something to do with the broad beach (at low tide), the mini watersports…

6. Overbeck’s

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An Aladdin's cave of curios, Edwardian country house Overbeck’s crowns the cliffs at Salcombe's estuary mouth. It's set in 3 hectares of lush, subtropical…

7. Maritime Museum

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Here be treasure: the highlight of the hauls from local shipwrecks are the 500 glittering Moroccan gold dinars from the Salcombe Cannon wreck site, dating…

8. Mill Bay

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Salcombe's best high-tide beach, sand-filled Mill Bay sits across the water on the east side of the estuary. It's reached by either walking the lane south…