High above the Teign Valley
Hennock
A small hillside village shaped by a characterful freehouse, a remarkable medieval church and wooded water to the north.
- Best for
- Village history and reservoir walking
- Give it
- A half day, or longer with a nearby family stop
- Don't miss
- St Mary's painted rood screen and ceilure
The Fox verdict
A high village with deep roots
Hennock pairs a memorable village pub and nationally important church interior with easy access to three wooded reservoirs.
Come for the painted medieval work in St Mary's, the Palk Arms' Teign Valley views and a moderate circular linking Trenchford, Kennick and Tottiford. Canonteign Falls and Stover Country Park add two family options nearby.
Where to go
Places in Hennock
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesTrenchford, Kennick and Tottiford Reservoirs Circular
A moderate circular of roughly 10.8 kilometres linking three expanses of open water through forest tracks and oak, sweet chestnut and rhododendron.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 3 to 3.5 hours
- Locality
- north of the village
Canonteign Falls
A popular family day out centred on England's highest man-made waterfall, a Victorian folly in a wooded natural setting.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2.5 hours
- Locality
- about a five-minute drive from Hennock
Stover Country Park
A 114-acre country park of woodland, heath, lake and marsh for family walks and wildlife.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 1.5 hours
- Locality
- about 1.5 miles from Hennock
Food & drink
1 placeThe Palk Arms
A traditional 16th-century freehouse with a home-cooked, locally sourced menu, local ales, Devon cider and long valley views.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 1 hour
- Locality
- high above the Teign Valley
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of St Mary
A Grade I church with a tower dating to around 1250, a painted medieval rood screen, a celebrated ceilure and a font carved around 1170.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Hennock village
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Three ways to explore Hennock
Signature outings
The Palk Arms
Settle into the 16th-century freehouse for local ales, Devon cider and long views across the Teign Valley.
Medieval Colour
See St Mary's painted rood screen and the decorated ceilure described as one of the finest in the country.
The Reservoir Circular
Follow the roughly 10.8-kilometre circular between Tottiford, Kennick and Trenchford through reservoir-side woodland.
The village story
Hennock Village Guide
A high Teign Valley village of pub character, medieval craft, reservoirs and a famously steep approach.
Olive and the Palk Arms
Olive is the dog at the Palk Arms, and Tripadvisor reviewers mention her by name, which tells you what sort of pub it is before you've walked in.
The pub itself is a 16th-century freehouse standing high above the Teign Valley, with long views across the hills to the Haldon Moors. The food is home-cooked and cheap — lamb and mint burgers in fresh buns with hot crispy chips and homemade coleslaw, ploughman's, a lot of it around five pounds. The ales come from Teignworthy and Dartmoor, the cider is Devon, and there's a wood-burning stove in the front public bar.
Pub Character and Company
A lounge with settees leads back to a dining room that overlooks the valley. Children are welcome until half past eight, it closes on Mondays, and it is reputedly haunted. It ranks fourth of twenty-one restaurants in Bovey Tracey, which is the town you drive to for most of what the village doesn't have — which is most things, two miles down the road.
One reviewer called it "a proper country pub that serves good food at very reasonable prices with friendly and welcoming staff including Olive the pub dog."
St Mary's and Hennock's Origins
St Mary's is the other landmark, and the more surprising one. It is Grade I listed, its tower dating to around 1250, the rest largely rebuilt around 1450. The ceilure — the decorated ceiling over the rood screen — is described as "one of the finest in the country." Below it the screen carries 32 panels of original medieval saints. The font is older still: a bowl of local stone on five shafts, carved around 1170. The parish registers begin in 1541.
The village is old in the way Devon villages are old. Domesday recorded it as Hanoch, twenty households, one cob and sixty sheep, worth thirty shillings a year to its lord — a Saxon thane named Alnoth, until the Normans handed the manor to a man called Roger. The name means "at the high oak-tree," which is roughly where you are: 600 to 800 feet up on the south side of the Teign Valley, on the south-eastern edge of Dartmoor.
Reservoirs, Rock and Wartime Sons
North of the houses lie three reservoirs — Tottiford, Kennick and Trenchford — built between the 1860s and 1907 to supply Torquay and Newton Abbot, and now fringed with oak, sweet chestnut and rhododendron. A circular walk of around ten kilometres links all three, and the guides call it particularly beautiful in autumn. Above the village, Bottor Rock is a granite outcrop that was once a prehistoric settlement.
John Hill was vicar here for 53 years, from 1775 to 1828. His four sons went to the Napoleonic Wars: one captained a ship at Trafalgar, one was lost at sea, and one was wounded at Waterloo.
Roads, Hills and the Sledger
Getting here needs a car. Newton Abbot has the nearest mainline station, six or seven miles east, and the 182 bus runs the Teign Valley, but the roads are narrow and the hill is steep.
Steep enough that one modern resident, known locally as Nick the Sledger, is remembered for arriving in the village by sledge when the snow comes down. It is that kind of hill.
Stay around Dartmoor
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Dartmoor, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Palk Arms — thepalkarms.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Church of St Mary — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Trenchford, Kennick and Tottiford Reservoirs Circular — dartmoor.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Canonteign Falls — canonteignfalls.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Stover Country Park — devon.gov.uk statutory register or public authority