Why Douglas?

And Why Douglas?

Marion’s father Douglas, whom many of our ‘older’ guests will remember, used to live here. From a Lowland Scots family, he actually grew up near Lichfield, used to holiday in the Peak District and spent all his working life in Africa, where Marion grew up… Hence the Derbyshire/African mix in Douglas’s Barn and probably still in Marion!

After he retired from Africa he and Rachel, Marion’s mother, spent the next forty years in south Devon, at what the Hall family used as their home base, their lovely thatched cottage called Barnford. After Rachel died, Douglas eventually decided to move up here, with Boots the cat, to live beside – not with – us.

He quickly made a lot of friends in Parwich, and just loved his self-appointed role as guardian angel of the Tom’s Barn guests while we were at work.  Douglas died in 2004;   in 2006 we converted ‘Douglas’s Barn’ into our second holiday cottage for two.