Feast & Fable

A Devon food, folklore and history retreat

Devon, England
18 to 24 May 2027

Open to all, 18 and over.

Photo: Jon Tonks

A black silhouette of a fox with its tail curled, placed on lined paper with black ink blots in the form of paw prints and abstract shapes, surrounded by a green border.
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Some weeks move and some weeks settle. This one settles, at Fowlescombe, a regenerative Devon farm that has been worked since the 1200s. The Grade II listed Victorian farmhouse and its courtyard of barns have been restored with unusual care, old stone and beams kept and worked with rather than stripped out, and everything from the linen to the placing of a chair has been thought about.

It is understated luxury of the truest kind, where even the mattresses are filled with wool from the farm's own sheep and made up by an organic mattress company here in Devon, and it cooks from what is grown, foraged or raised within sight of the table.

Photo Credit: John Tonks

Inside Story LLC · WA Seller of Travel Reg. No. 605351704 · CST 2174383-40

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What You’ll Do

(A peek at two days of this retreat)

Picnic table set outdoors in a lush green forest with various food and drink items, including sandwiches, salad, chocolates, a glass bottle, flowers in a vase, and a rolled-up blanket.
Picnic table set outdoors in a lush green forest with various food and drink items, including sandwiches, salad, chocolates, a glass bottle, flowers in a vase, and a rolled-up blanket.

Photo Credit: Jon Tonks

Day 1

The Maker and the Chef

  • We begin in the water. A morning swim in Fowlescombe’s natural swimming pond, cold, clear and quiet apart from the birds, then the sauna a few steps away. Move between the two as many times as you like and let the farm settle around you.

  • A hands-on cookery masterclass with chef Elly Wentworth, a Great British Menu finalist, cooking with produce picked that morning from the farm’s walled garden and orchard. Expect to get your hands dirty, pick up a few tricks of the trade, and leave with dishes you will want to cook again at home.

  • Tea and cake under the apple trees in the orchard, where our folklorist tells the first stories of the retreat: the pixies who lead travellers astray on the moor, and the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor, a tale people still swear by.

  • Dinner together at one long table, cooked from the afternoon’s work, followed by an evening of stories by the fire with our resident storyteller.

A person with gray hair, wearing a dark coat, beige pants, and carrying a teal backpack, is walking on a trail through a grassy, hilly landscape. There are three horses grazing near a small stream. The sky is overcast with gray clouds.
A person with gray hair, wearing a dark coat, beige pants, and carrying a teal backpack, is walking on a trail through a grassy, hilly landscape. There are three horses grazing near a small stream. The sky is overcast with gray clouds.

Photo Credit: Dartmoor’s Daughter

Day 2

The High Moor

  • A morning foraging walk up onto the granite of Dartmoor with a moorland guide. Hedgerows first, then bracken and bog, then open high ground where the wind never quite stops. We gather what the season gives us as we go.

  • A hike to Grimspound, a Bronze Age settlement ringed by a great stone wall with the remains of two dozen roundhouses inside. People lived here more than three thousand years ago, and standing inside the enclosure it is easy to imagine them.

  • Home to the farm, where the fire is already lit. Dinner cooked over open flame and laced with the day's foraging, eaten outside if the weather allows, with the smoke and the stories drifting together as the light goes.

Other Highlights

  • The sea at Mothecombe. A private beach on the Flete estate at the mouth of the Erme, and one of the loveliest stretches of the South Devon coast. Dips in the sea for anyone who wants them after a week of the swimming pond, and a long leisurely afternoon on the sand.

  • Dartmouth and the Mayflower. Down to the harbour town where the Mayflower and the Speedwell put in for repairs in August 1620, and where the pilgrims spent their last days on English soil before the crossing. For North American guests this is often the most unexpected hour of the week: the story you were taught at school, standing on the quay where it actually happened. A steep, handsome town, a boat trip up the Dart if the weather is kind, and a very good pub at the end of it.

  • And one evening a local Morris dancing group arrive out of the dusk in rag coats and tatters, with sticks and drums and bells, and dance in the yard. Then they hand you a stick and teach you the steps.

Group of women dressed in black costumes with feathers and hat accessories, performing a dance outdoors on a street.

Who You’ll Meet

  • A woman gardening in a lush yard with various plants and flowers, a house with a gray roof and chimney in the background, and trees with green leaves.

    Chef Elly Wentworth

    A Great British Menu finalist, and the chef who teaches our cookery masterclass. Elly cooks from Fowlescombe's own garden and orchard, so the class is built from whatever is ready that morning rather than a fixed menu. The feast half of Feast & Fable is largely hers.

    Photo Credit: Jon Tonks

  • A middle-aged man with short gray hair, glasses, wearing a white dress shirt, brown vest, and brown pants, sitting against a plain white background, smiling and looking at the camera.

    Mark Norman

    Folklore researcher, author, and the voice behind The Folklore Podcast, downloaded more than a two million times. A council member of The Folklore Society, Mark wrote the definitive study The Folklore of Devon and keeps the country's largest archive of black dog lore. He brings Dartmoor's legends to the fireside.

  • Black and white portrait of a smiling woman with long hair, wearing a sweater, outdoors with a blurred background.

    Tracey Norman

    Author, playwright and folklore researcher, and Devon's foremost teller of its witch history. With Mark she wrote Devon's Forgotten Witches; her play WITCH was built from real trial transcripts. She speaks on the county's witches and its old folk medicine, the cures and charms and stranger remedies.

  • A smiling woman with short brown hair, wearing a red jacket and black top, standing outdoors in a rural area with hills and cloudy sky in the background.

    Katy Cawkwell

    A storyteller of more than twenty-five years, working in myth, legend and folktale from the Barbican stage to a Neolithic burial chamber, and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Katy carries the tales through the week, told aloud after dinner as they were always meant to be.

  • A woman with long hair sitting on a rock holding a black and white dog in her arms, overlooking a landscape of fields and hills under a cloudy sky.

    Emma Cunis, Dartmoor's Daughter

    A Dartmoor guide and forager who leads walks, foraging and nature connection across the high moor. Granddaughter of the noted Dartmoor writer Eric Hemery, Emma reads the granite landscape and its hedgerows like family, and leads our morning foraging walk and the hike to Grimspound.

    Photo Credit: Steve Hayward

  • Group of women dressed in black, purple, and feathered costumes, wearing hats with feathers and decorations, participating in a parade or festival on a street.

    Grimspound Morris Dancers

    A Devon border side with sticks, drums and bells, and dances rooted in West Country tradition. The old ritual of stamping and song that has marked the turning seasons for centuries.

Close-up of a person's hand holding shiny brown acorns over a weathered wooden basket filled with red berries, green leaves, and apples outdoors.

Photo Credit: Dartmoor’s Daughter

Where you’ll stay

A cozy bedroom with a large bed, beige pillows, and a wooden headboard, surrounded by simple decor and warm lighting.

Six nights at Fowlescombe Farm. Its Grade II listed buildings have been restored with real care, their old stone and beams preserved rather than stripped away. The suites feel considered rather than decorated, down to the linen, the evening light and where a chair is placed so you will actually sit in it.

This is understated luxury, and the mattresses are the proof: filled with wool from Fowlescombe’s own sheep and made by an organic mattress company here in Devon. You would never know unless told, which is rather the point. No gold taps or grand announcements, just very good things, quietly done and mostly made within a few miles of your bed.

Beyond lie rare-breed pastures, the garden and orchard that supply the kitchen, and land farmed for eight hundred years. One unhurried base for the whole week.

Photo Credits: Jon Tonks

A cozy living room viewed from the staircase, with a beige sofa and armchair, a round coffee table with items on it, a wooden sideboard with decorative objects, a large black-and-white artwork, a tall floor lamp, and curtains on the windows.
Stone house with large windows and small porch, green lawn with two lounge chairs, stone pathway, lush trees and farmland with cows in the background under a cloudy sky.

FAQs

  • No. Feast & Fable is open to everyone.

    (Thistle & Flame and Sea, Song & Sanctuary are the two that are for women)

  • Not remotely. Chef Elly teaches from wherever you are, and plenty of people arrive having not cooked anything ambitious in years. It is relaxed and hands-on, and there is nothing to get wrong.

  • Cold, brief and entirely optional. The farm has its own natural swimming pond, with a sauna to get back into afterwards. There is also an optional outing to the sea at Mothecombe for anyone who wants a dip in salt water.

  • It is the biggest day on your feet: open moorland, uneven granite underfoot, and a hike up to Grimspound. There is a shorter version that skips the climb, and a stay-at-the-farm option if you would rather have the morning in the garden.

  • It is properly rural, which is the appeal, but it is twenty minutes from Totnes. There is a fast internet connection at Fowlescombe, so if you need to be reachable you will be.

  • Press Book. You will be taken into our booking area, where a deposit reserves your place and the balance falls due nearer the time. If you would rather talk first, book a call instead and we will take it from there.

  • All accommodation and meals for the retreat, and all drinks except alcohol. Every session and activity, all local travel and entries once you are with us, a welcome pack, and our planning and support throughout. In short, everything from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.

  • International flights, travel to the meeting point, travel and medical insurance, alcohol, and any treatments or add-on activities offered on that particular retreat. Where a retreat offers treatment add-ons, they are booked and paid for separately and the balance falls due 90 days before you travel, alongside the rest.

  • Yes, and many do. All are welcome.

  • No. Every retreat has a single supplement for a room of your own. Twin sharing is there if you would prefer it, and if you are coming with a friend we will put you together.

  • Fit enough for a comfortable few hours on your feet, on uneven ground, at a pace that suits the slowest person rather than the quickest. There are gentler options every single day. If you are unsure, speak to us and describe your usual week honestly. After a call we will advise on the fitness level required and which activities would suit you.

  • Tell us on the questionnaire after booking and the kitchen will work around you. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, allergies, the lot. The chefs at our retreat locations are used to it and would rather know well in advance than on the night.

  • Yes. Valid travel insurance is required, and must cover you for the full duration of the retreat, including emergency medical treatment, hospitalisation and evacuation.

    We also strongly recommend that your policy covers delay, interruption, cancellation and lost luggage, and in particular that you take a Cancel For Any Reason policy.

  • A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person secures your place. The balance is paid in three equal instalments, due 150, 120 and 90 days before the retreat begins, along with any add-ons you have chosen.

    If you cancel 91 days or more before the retreat, you lose the deposit only, and we will convert it into a credit toward any of our retreats, valid for 12 months; anything you have paid above the deposit is refunded. Between 90 and 61 days, a quarter of the total price is non-refundable. Between 60 and 31 days, half is non-refundable. At 30 days or less, the full price is non-refundable.

    And a promise: if we are able to fill your place after you cancel, we will refund everything you have paid beyond your deposit and a $250 administration fee, no matter when you cancelled.

    If we ever have to cancel a retreat and cannot reschedule it, you get a full refund, within 14 days if we still hold your funds and otherwise within 30 days. The full terms are in the Retreat Agreement & Waiver you sign when you book.

  • Yes, and we would encourage it. We can arrange a bespoke trip or a curated itinerary for before or after. Just tell us when you book, or any time up to a month before you travel.

    Join what you want and skip what you do not. If you would rather spend an afternoon in the garden with a book than get on the minibus, that is a perfectly good day.

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