The Holne Chase Experience

A former Hunting Lodge to Buckfast Abbey, Holne Chase Hotel and Restaurant has long enjoyed a reputation for friendly and generous hospitality in a perfectly unique location.

Sebastian and Philippa Hughes and their family have been welcoming guests to their little oasis of calm on Dartmoor for over 12  years now, together with a 'bother' of Bassets including Batty II, a Labrador and most recently a retreiver called ... Dart. 

If Sebastian isn’t on hand to offer his own unique blend of verbal abuse and political incorrectness, then you can rest assured that Manager Patrick Salloway and his team will be on hand to ensure you have a wonderfully relaxing break. 

Nothing is every too much trouble and the hotel continues to be run in a relaxed and informal manner, totally without pretension or "corporate trappings" .

Holne Chase is a very special place and once "hooked" you will be back for more.  

Suites and rooms are as individual as the guests that stay in them and each takes a name from the tributaries of the River Dart.

At Holne Chase you are encouraged to do as little or as much as you want …

A Brief History of Holne Chase;

Holne Manor: In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Edolf was the Lord of this Manor. Afterwards it became the property of Baldwin the Sheriff, who held high command in the Norman army at the Battle of Hastings. He was Grandson of Godfrey, Earl of Ewe, who was a natural son of Richard, Duke of Norway, the grandfather of William the Conqueror.

From him the Manor descended to Bourchier, Earl of Ewe, who married Anne Plantagenet, grand-daughter of King Edward III. William Bourchier, his third son, married the daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Hawkford, and he appears to have eventually succeeded his father in this Manor. His wife inherited the estates of her maternal grandfather, Lord Fitzwarren, and he, with his son and grandson successively sat in the House of Lords under this title (Earl of Ewe) till the year 1536, when the latter was created Earl of Bath.

Henry, fifth Earl of Bath, died without issue in 1654, and at his death his title became extinct. His brother Edward, the fourth Earl, had three daughters. The third, Anne, married first Earl of Middlesex, and secondly Sir Chichester Wrey, and became the ancestress of Sir Bourchier Wrey.

The derivation of the name “Holne” is thought by some to be from “Holen”, meaning holly in Anglo-Saxon times. Holly grows profusely throughout the district and at Christmas a tradition of the hotel is to decorate a large Holly Tree from the Holne Chase woods; some of the most ancient oak woods in the country.