Swallows Cottage, Churston Ferrers

Swallows Cottage is a two-bedroom cottage at Churston Ferrers, the village between Paignton and Brixham on the South Devon coast. It sleeps four, is nicely furnished with comfortable beds, and comes stocked with the small things that usually run out on the first evening - hand soap, kitchen basics, loo roll. The outlook is over fields rather than rooftops, and the coast is within walking distance.

Two small dogs are welcome for a charge, and the letting terms ask for dogs to be kept on a lead at all times. That is not a formality here, and it is the single most important thing to understand about the property. The outside space is not reached from inside the cottage: you go out through the front door, along and in at a side gate, and the front door opens onto the road. A dog let out unattached could be on the road in seconds, so every trip to the garden means clipping the lead on first. Dog owners have flagged this plainly. The garden itself is small, with a strip of artificial grass and furniture that has not seen much use, so it is somewhere to stand rather than somewhere a dog will spend the afternoon. There is a small green about a hundred yards away that works better for a quick outing.

Against that, the walking is the reason to be here. Elberry Cove is a mile or so away on a path through the woods that welcomes dogs - steep in places and rough underfoot, but a pebble cove at the end of it - and Broadsands beach and Brixham harbour are barely further. Guests who came for the walking rate the cottage as the best they have stayed in on this stretch of coast. The WiFi is the other weak point, and is not reliable enough for streaming in the evening.

Swallows Cottage suits a couple or a small family with one or two small dogs who will be out walking the coast most of the day, and who are comfortable with a lead-on-every-time garden routine rather than a door they can open and forget about.