Cottages in Croyde

Table of Contents

• At a glance: What should you know about renting a cottage in Croyde?
• Cottages in Croyde: find your perfect retreat
• Exploring Croyde: our top recommendations
• Activities: What are the top things to do and see in Croyde?

• Thatched cob cottages: Croyde's lanes are lined with whitewashed cob and thatch, so a self-catering cottage here usually means low beams, thick walls and a wood burner.
• A serious surfers' bay: the beach is short, steep and powerful, drawing experienced surfers rather than paddlers, with Saunton Sands nearby for gentler days.
• Villages worth the walk: base yourself in Croyde or Georgeham for thatched pubs, or in Braunton for shops and the Tarka Trail.
• Farm-to-table eating: kitchens are stocked from North Devon farms and day boats, and the best tables here cook Devon produce plainly and well.
• Biosphere on the doorstep: Braunton Burrows and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve put England's largest dune system within a short drive.

Croyde's stock is unusually characterful for a surf village: thatched cob cottages around the crossroads, converted barns on the lanes towards Georgeham, and a handful of newer coastal builds above Down End. Most cottages here are set up for wet kit and long weekends and suitable for groups too. Look for the practical touches that matter on this coast:

• An outdoor shower and a boot room for sandy wetsuits
• A wood burner or open fire for autumn and winter lets
• A walled garden or sun terrace out of the Atlantic wind
• A well-equipped kitchen for cooking Devon meat and day-boat fish
• Off-road parking within walking distance of the beach

Those details decide whether a stay feels restful or awkward once the weather turns.

What are the best areas to stay in Croyde?

For most guests Croyde village itself is the right call, close enough to walk to the sand, the bakery and the pubs. The table below details regions for specific interests:

What do our guests say?

Guests staying in Croyde consistently rate the cottages above 9.0+, and the praise is specific rather than general: warm interiors after a cold session, gardens that catch the evening sun, and hosts who leave local advice about tides and parking. Dog owners and small groups score them especially highly, and several properties in the village hold a perfect 10.0 across their reviews.

Here are our top-rated cottages in Croyde from the past year:

1. The Rock - 9.9: A pet-friendly cottage for eight in Croyde, praised for its space and its easy walk down to the bay.
2. Croyde Barn - 9.9+: A converted barn sleeping nine in Croyde, Devon, singled out for quiet lanes and a welcome for dogs.
3. Beachbreak - 9.9+: A ten-person cottage close to Croyde's centre, valued for group space and pet-friendly, wet-kit-proof practicality.

Croyde sits in a small valley on the North Devon coast, between the dunes of Braunton Burrows and the National Trust headland of Baggy Point.

🥗Where to eat in Croyde?

According to Google Maps data and reviews, Biffen's Kitchen is the best rated restaurant in Croyde. Below is a table showing the top 5 highly-rated restaurants hand-picked by our travel experts.

⭐Our guests' recommendation: Our guest traveller Charlotte recommends the The Thatch in Croyde: a genuinely thatched village pub where she lingered over North Devon beef and local ale, the sort of slow, unrushed evening a cottage holiday is for.

1. Surf Croyde Bay
2. Walk Baggy Point
3. Explore Braunton Burrows
4. Wander thatched Georgeham
5. Long sands at Saunton
6. Taste North Devon produce
7. Cycle the Tarka Trail

1. Surf Croyde Bay

   Croyde is a short, steep beach that folds Atlantic swell into a fast, hollow wave, which is why it has a reputation among British surfers rather than among paddlers. On a clean autumn morning the peaks off Down End draw experienced boardriders from across the South West. Several village schools run lessons for beginners at low tide, when the sand flattens out. Check the tide table before you go: the bay changes character completely between high and low water, and it features in Holidu's index of Europe's best beaches.

2. Walk Baggy Point

   The National Trust path out to Baggy Point is the classic Croyde walk, a gentle two-hour there-and-back along a grassy headland with the whole bay behind you. Climbers work the sea cliffs below, ravens and fulmars nest on the ledges, and on clear days you can pick out Lundy Island out to the west. It is an accessible route with a firm surface for much of its length, which makes it one of the few genuinely easy coastal walks on this stretch of North Devon.

3. Explore Braunton Burrows

   Braunton Burrows is the core of the UNESCO North Devon Biosphere Reserve and the largest dune system in England, a strange landscape of shifting sand hills, orchids and marsh helleborine. American troops rehearsed the D-Day landings among these dunes, and the concrete landing-craft mock-ups are still there. Bring boots and a map: the paths shift with the sand, the scale surprises most first-time visitors, and the birdlife along the estuary edge repays a slow morning.

4. Wander thatched Georgeham

   A mile inland, Georgeham is Croyde's quieter twin, a compact village of cob walls, thatch and narrow lanes where the writer Henry Williamson lived and wrote Tarka the Otter. Two village pubs serve proper Devon cooking to walkers coming off the coast path, and the parish church sits at the top of the hill above them. It is a twenty-minute stroll from Croyde along field paths, and it shows you what this coast looked like before the surf arrived.

5. Long sands at Saunton

   Just south of Baggy Point, Saunton Sands runs for three miles of firm, gently shelving beach backed by the Burrows. Where Croyde is short and punchy, Saunton is long and forgiving, which makes it the local longboarding beach and the better choice for a windy walk with a dog. The sand is wide enough at low tide to feel almost empty even in August, and sunsets over the Taw and Torridge estuary are worth timing dinner around.

6. Taste North Devon produce

   Slow travel here means shopping like a local: North Devon beef and lamb from the farms behind the village, crab and lobster landed along the coast, cheeses and cider from the Taw valley, and clotted cream that has not travelled far. Braunton's butchers and greengrocers are the practical stop for a cottage kitchen, and the weekly market there is the easiest place to buy directly from producers before cooking a long, unhurried supper back at the house.

7. Cycle the Tarka Trail

   From Braunton the Tarka Trail follows a disused railway line along the estuary to Barnstaple and on towards Bideford, flat and traffic-free for miles. Hire bikes at either end and ride out past saltmarsh, wading birds and old quay walls. It is the most relaxed way to see the estuary country behind the coast, and with children it turns a whole afternoon into an easy, downhill-feeling outing with tea shops spaced conveniently along the route.