AN award-winning Jacobstowe bed and breakfast and restaurant business will change hands next week as its long-serving owners retire after more than 25 years welcoming visitors to their farm.
John and Jenny King first started offering bed and breakfast accommodation at Higher Cadham Farm, at Jacobstowe in 1976.
The guesthouse won the Dartmoor Warmest Welcome Award in 1992. After expanding to nine rooms and a restaurant two years later, the state of the art stainless steel kitchen won a Creda grand prix award.
Five years ago, Jenny went to the Dorchester Hotel, London, where she was named as one of the AA top 20 Landladies of the Year.
John?s family have been at the farm for almost 100 years, and there is bound to be some sadness when the couple say goodbye to it on May 6, and retire to Dawlish.
?We are going to miss the people. Some of them have been coming so long they are just like friends,? said Jenny.
She said guests from all over the world had come to stay at the 12-room farm guesthouse.
The business was badly hit by the outbreak of foot and mouth two years ago ? theirs was among the first bed and breakfast establishments to close and the last to re-open, missing most of the 2001 tourism season.
They also lost their animals to the outbreak. The farm had been home to 500 sheep, two pet pot-bellied pigs and two pet goats but all had to be killed under the contiguous cull policy.
Higher Cadham has also been featured on a number of television and radio programmes, including the BBC?s Really Wild Show, which filmed the farm wildlife.
Jenny was also the founder of the Friendly Farm Holiday Group, 21 years ago, which promotes farm holiday accommodation in the area.