Looking out at the church and village green, or sitting in the delightful garden, you can enjoy a melting Cream Tea or the most wonderful cream cakes, served with generous pots of tea or coffee. Everything on the menu is home-made by Mary and Christopher and wherever possible they use local produce and only the very best quality ingredients. The cream comes from a local farm, the salmon is smoked in Devon, even the jam with your Cream Tea is made from Devon fruit.

Banoffee Pie seems to be the cake most in demand, but the Hazelnut & Walnut, the Fresh Fruit

If there's one establishment that really draws the crowds, it's the Corn Dolly in East Street, everyone's idea of 'a real tea shop'! A flag-stoned hallway leads to a cosy front parlour where cruck-framed walls and pine tables add to the old-fashioned feel. Beautifully decorated with bowls of fresh flowers, the cake table almost groans under the weight of traditional delights such as carrot cake, sticky date cake, Earl Grey cake, and treacle or Bakewell tarts, to name but a few. The menu is simple but appetising. Everything apart from the bread and tea cakes (which come from a nearby bakery) is freshly prepared on the premises, using only the very best local ingredients.

The 'Corn Dolly Tea' is a firm favourite: two enormous fresh scones, local jams and award-winning Devon Clotted Cream. Customers really appreciate the teas (loose leaf, naturally) served in elegant bone china with tea strainer and sugar tongs to hand. Children are especially welcome and have their own menu featuring such delights as Marmite soldiers and jelly & ice cream. In the little gallery across the hallway, a carefully-chosen selection of items includes unusual and beautiful cards, gifts, sterling silver jewellery, locally made crafts and, of course, corn dollies, which also adorn the hallway and tea room. Local jams and chutneys specially made for the Corn Dolly are on sale, along with speciality teas and an 'own blend' coffee.

For more than a millennium there has been a mill at Otterton and today it is one of the few surviving working water mills in the English countryside. Back in 1977, though, it had stood silent and abandoned for some 20 years.

That was when Desna Greenhow appeared on the scene. Fortunately, the water wheel and much of the machinery was still in place and two years later the mill was grinding grain once more with Desna as the miller. She produces between a quarter and half a ton of flour each week and if you arrive on one of her milling days you can watch the whole process under way. On other days, you can still see the machinery in motion, although not grinding.

Desna only buys grain that has been tested for protein and gluten for flavour. The resulting top quality flour is used in the Barn Bakery where baking takes place every day of the week, producing wonderfully tasty cakes, scones, shortbreads, puddings and crumbles. The award-winning Walnut & Raisin Cake is particularly delicious.

You’ll find all these teatime treats on offer in The Duckery Restaurant, a place full of character and atmosphere, housed in the former Mill stable. Susie Pitt is the chef and there is nothing she serves here that isn’t made on the premises. Susie makes her menu as varied as possible using produce from the Mill’s walled garden, - vegetables, fruits and herbs all inventively used and thoroughly wholesome.

There are always vegetarian soups and main dishes on offer, along with appetising dishes such as Cumberland Sausage with rosemary and garlic potatoes. As for desserts, the Raspberry Pavlova is ‘to die for’ and the choice may include traditional delicacies such as Gooseberry Curd, puddings and crumbles. Or you could complete your meal with one of the fine Devon cheeses served here, - Devon Blue, Sharpham Rustic or Brie, or the splendidly named Ticklemore Goat. In good weather you can enjoy this superior fare either in the sheltered courtyard or at picnic tables on the adjoining meadow.

Opening times: 10.00am - 5.00pm (daily). Closes around 4.30pm in winter.