Our seaside shepherd’s hut holiday at Dinham House

Want to know what it’s like to stay here at this shepherd’s hut near Polzeath? Imagine your own intimate corner of the universe at the far flung edges of an old property’s garden. It’s a garden they’ve been curating for hundreds of years. You idle away your hours in a perfect Cornish cedar hot tub by an old slate wall, and gaze across the fields onto a broad landscape where the clouds and water lovingly drift by.

There’s a canopy of trees above you, and nature’s given you a stage of its own making to look back at it from – it’s a real garden room with a view. You’re protected from the strong afternoon sun as much as you are from the morning mist and drizzle. But just enough of both filter through to tingle your senses and remind you of the cocoon you’re in.

It’s a very well curated arrangement. You’ve already spent every morning and evening in the tub, plus the occasional noon and afternoon too.

It’s evening now. You drink down cider and wine you’ve collected from the local vineyards at Trevibban Mill and Camel Valley. You didn’t know about them until a day ago, and now your car has twelve cases of their finest. You did bring a big car, right? You’ve chosen a bold red to go with the steak that was cut to your specification at the Strawberry Fields farm shop in Lifton you stopped at on your drive from London. The butcher needed a hacksaw to get through that T-bone, and now it’s about to sizzle over the sparkling embers of the broad fire pit you stoked an hour ago from the endless wood pile. You had the most amazing fish and chips from Rick Stein on your first day here, and then multiple orders of wonderful oysters at the Port Gaverne Restaurant and Hotel on your second.

For your third act, you drove ten minutes to the edge of the Camel Estuary and bought two dozen Porthilly oysters, hand picked from trays in front of you. A dozen for a tenner! You stopped at Hawkesfield to assemble a perfect charcuterie board, then found a spot by the sea to shuck away and give your senses over to the most perfect local food and wine. You and your partner lay there for hours, drifting and dreaming to the timeless sound of the sea.

We had a wonderful time at the shepherd’s hut. It is in the most perfect location at the best of specification: the Sabatier knives spoke to her and the Jasper Conran plates spoke to me. The awaiting bottle of Camel Valley Bacchus Dry attracted both of our lips. The bed is cozy and intimate, and the views out the window are just divine. It’s warm by default, and quite toasty if you light an internal fire.

Look up through the skylight at night and stars will twinkle in your eyes. The kitchen has all you need to cook for two. In a short distance you’ll reach Padstow, Rock, Daymer Bay, Port Isaac and Wadebridge.

We didn’t want to leave, and so stayed a night more. It gets five stars, but it’s easily far better.