Not far away is the trust’s Holnicote estate, where beavers were recently reintroduced. The area has wonderful flora and fauna too. It’s the perfect spot to get away from it all.” It’s pitch black at night, just the sound of the river and birdsong. We’re hoping to get the campsite open in July. You see herons in the river, deer on the hillside. “It is like one of those places that time has forgot. Rob Joules, the National Trust’s general manager for the north Devon coast and countryside, said one of the joys of the place was the feeling of a land where time has stood still. Photograph: National Trust/Mark Johnson/PA The trust plans to upgrade the Cloud Farm campsite. The campsite is close to the site of a medieval village believed to be the inspiration for the Doone clan’s hideaway. People have camped on the banks of Badgworthy Water for years but the trust is planning to upgrade it and open a second cafe in the farmhouse.

South of the farmhouse is the second spot – the Cloud Farm campsite. But the idea is to use it to create a “gateway” to buildings and landscapes that Blackmore did depict, such as the Church of St Mary, where Blackmore’s grandfather was a rector and which the author borrowed for the marriage between Lorna and Ridd.

The farmhouse does not appear to feature in the book and may have been named after its publication in honour of it. The farmhouse, which will be home to a refurbished tearoom called The Buttery, is close to a 17th-century bridge and ford. The first is the Lorna Doone farmhouse in the picture-postcard village of Malmsmead, near Lynton. The National Trust’s acquisition consists of two sites.

Set on 17th-century Exmoor around the banks of the Badgworthy Water river, Blackmore’s book tells the story of the Doone clan, nobles turned outlaws, and farmer’s son John Ridd, whose quest for revenge becomes complicated when he and Lorna begin an illicit relationship.īlackmore weaved real events, historical figures and local legends into his fiction and one of the joys of the book for fans is to try to work out which bits are real, which made up, and visiting Exmoor to try to pinpoint the locations in the book.

Lorna doone kindle