About

History

‘Harrabeer’ means ‘wood of the hares’ in Old English, spoken between 450-1100, and the Domesday Book (1086) records a farmhouse here. A document from 1503 refers to ‘the dilapidated Harrabeer’, showing that houses have come and gone over the centuries! And centuries ago, our land was owned by the family of Sir Francis Drake himself.

Today the House has a core dating to the 1650s – the guest snug, kitchen and barn – with features typical of a Devon longhouse. These elements barely changed until the 1850s when the railway came to Yelverton and Harrabeer was extended hugely to accommodate a smart Victorian family.

More recently, in 1975 the House was turned into a hotel and its land sold for development. In 2003 the dilapidated barn was converted and the original inglenook fireplace and beams in the oldest part of the house restored. A new three-year programme of modernisation commenced in winter 2021-2.