9 of the best places to enjoy an afternoon tea in Devon

Badger’s Holt serves a great Devonshire cream tea, with a secret scone recipe going back 60 years, offering homemade traditional fruit, cheese and gluten free scones. The Salty Monk is in the village of Sidford, or why not walk along National Trust “The Byes” from Sidmouth and make a day of it. Afternoon Teas here are a delight with everything homemade from the award winning Scones & Jam to an array of cake and a Savoury Tea with their own Smoked Salmon. Great Gluten free options and Doggie friendly too you can sit in the award winning gardens, or in the winter a cosy lounge, large private Car Park.

Tag: Devon

They offer cream teas with a difference – large Cherry Bakewell flavoured scones! The loose leaf tea also adds to the experience as its accompanied by a three-phase tea timer for weak, moderate or strong tea strength. Boringdon Hall Hotel is a seductive manor house hotel on the edge of Dartmoor where luxury and style come together with the drama of Elizabethan architecture. It serves great afternoon and cream teas with homemade scones which can be enjoyed in the Great Hall or intimate but impressive Grenville Suite. A short walk from Exeter Quay overlooking the canal and Trews Weir on the River Exe is the Welcome Café.

Buckland Abbey

Three times winner of Devon Life’s “Best Tearoom” Award, Hele Corn Mill is a unique working watermill dating back to 1525, located by the stunning Hele Bay. They offer some different variations on the traditional cream tea, including the Devonshire Split and Thunder and Lightning cream teas where golden syrup replaces strawberry jam. In the summer months, guests can enjoy their afternoon tea in the walled garden. The Old Forge is a beautiful converted blacksmith’s forge in the heart of Chagford serving high quality local and homemade food and drink. Independent cream tea reviewer Ditch Townsend rated their cream tea as the best of the over 200 cream teas he has tasted this year.

The garden kitchen restaurant serves excellent Devonshire cream teas with homemade scones and a choice of jams. Above a quiet, sandy beach on Devon’s rugged North Atlantic coast sits The Watersmeet Hotel in the timeless village of Mortehoe. Their cream teas are served with freshly made scones, thick local clotted cream and sweet strawberry jam. In summer cream teas can be enjoyed on the suntrap terrace or the lawn, whilst in winter they’re served in the comfy lounge. The Seven Dials Café is found in the picturesque Cockington village, set within an award-winning country park, a mile from Torquay seafront.

Variations could include hearty food like pies, potatoes and meat occasionally. Afternoon tea was largely a social event for the upper class, sometimes called ‘low tea’ because it was enjoyed in comfortable chairs. Sweet treats including cakes and pastries are likely to be on the menu but you may be offered a wider variety including macaroons, Victoria sponge and mousse.

Four times winner of Devon Life’s Best Tearoom award, our tea room is the perfect place to enjoy a traditional Devonshire cream tea. The Lee Abbey Tea Cottage is a much treasured place, serving cream teas, cakes, drinks and ice cream, with a smile. Changing with each season, look out for menu highlights including seasonal ‘scones of the month’ or garden vegetable soup. You can also pop into the Victorian kitchen garden to see what’s growing, as it often supplies home-grown fruit and veg to the Old Kitchen tea room.

They have https://www.thecoffeerush.co.uk/ a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence and their cream teas are award winning with most recent award being the Devon Life“Best Scone in Devon 2016” award. Step inside The Bedford Hotel in the heart of the award-winning Devon market town of Tavistock for a warm and traditional welcome. Dainty sandwiches, warm scones with jam and cream, tempting cakes, and plenty of tea and coffee are available. Full afternoon tea is served from 3pm–5pm every day, or enjoy a perfect Devon cream tea at any time of the day. Deep in the West Devon countryside outside of Torrington is the Royal Horticultural Society’s Rosemoor Garden. Admission to the restaurant is free and it has views overlooking some of the beautiful gardens.

• Some of the venues featured are up market hotels whilst others are small tearooms hidden deep in the Devonshire countryside.
• Sweet treats including cakes and pastries are likely to be on the menu but you may be offered a wider variety including macaroons, Victoria sponge and mousse.
• In the summer months, guests can enjoy their afternoon tea in the walled garden.
• Devon cream teas and afternoon teas are served in the Lounge or in the picturesque garden and come with homemade scones and a choice of tea.

Our salad dressing, jams, chutneys, marmalades and teas are all available for purchase (please ask for further details). This 16th-century water mill located 300m from Hele Bay Beach has been voted Best Tea Shop in Devon four times since 2013. Complete our short survey below to enter our free draw, and be in with a chance of winning a luxury two-night stay in award winning accommodation in Devon. Children and adults alike will enjoy learning about the history of our mill and how we still use it to grind our wholemeal flour. Sandwiches are served from 2pm–6pm; Full Afternoon Tea is served until 6pm (24 hours’ notice needed) at £12 per person, or £19.50 per person, to include a glass of champagne.

One recent Tripadvisor review claimed it offers the best tea in Devon, while another claimed it’s probably the best in the world. Part of the whole experience of visiting a café or tearoom in Devon is where your search will take you. When one of your best known dishes is the Devonshire Cream Tea, you have to have some pretty top notch cafés and tearooms but there’s more to Devon’s cafés and tearooms than that. Meander through 700 years of history at this medieval Abbey, complete with beautiful gardens. There are three walks to choose from, including a gentle woodland stroll with River Tavy views, and forest routes that reward walkers with tree-dappled pathways. Whilst strolling along the riverside and woodland ways, you could easily forget that the city lies so close.

You can enjoy afternoon tea in the dining room or on the terrace overlooking the gardens. This small tearoom has been praised for its excellent Covid precautions, fresh scones and to-die-for homemade cakes. There are countless Devon tea rooms, cafes, restaurants and hotels offering afternoon tea, but before looking at just a small selection, let’s clear a few more things up. Hele Cornmill is a unique 16th century water mill in North Devon and is celebrating its 500th anniversary in 2025.Free entry to the mill where you can learn how we make the flour used in our selection of cakes! View the mill workings and learn about the history of the mill we’ve discovered over the last 15 years; its owners and workers of the past five centuries.

of the best places to enjoy an afternoon tea in Devon

Creams teas can be enjoyed in the cosy sitting room or bar, the light and airy restaurant or outside on the terrace. Moorland Garden Hotel is located in ‘War Horse’ country, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, not far from Plymouth, Tavistock and the border with Cornwall. Devon cream teas and afternoon teas are served in the Lounge or in the picturesque garden and come with homemade scones and a choice of tea. The Royal Oak Farm has a small tearoom alongside a traditional pick-your-own fruit farm. Their gorgeous farm shop is packed to the brim with produce grown locally and meat reared within just a few miles. All scones are freshly baked each morning and served with local clotted cream and homemade jam produced from the strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants grown on-site.

If you’re interested in working with us click here for national and regional contacts.

Their cream teas are well presented in wicker baskets on a wooden chopping board and come with loose leaf tea. Any list of the tope cafeé and tearooms in the UK will inevitably include a good representation from Devon – an achievement of which we are rightly proud. Bovey Castle, set in Dartmoor National Park, is one of the finest hotels in the UK and offers visitors a chance to be treated like a king whilst enjoying a cream tea or a more extensive afternoon tea within its wonderful grounds. Their cream teas, with homemade scones and jam, have quickly built a reputation as one of the best in North Devon. Independent cream tea reviewer Ditch Townsend recently rated their Devonshire cream teas as one of the best of over 200 tasted in Devon during 2015. This hotel is a 15-minute drive from Tavistock and enables visitors to have afternoon tea beside a crackling log fire in winter or while enjoying the terrace and riverside gardens in summer.