Birdcage Cottage

Birdcage Cottage is a two-bedroom apartment-cottage spread over three floors of a period building in Kingsand, sleeping four. The front door sits 200m from Kingsand Beach and 400m from Cawsand Beach along the seafront. Five reviews average 4.4.

The cottage is laid out vertically with furnished nooks tucked into the quirky old footprint. Exposed brickwork and stripped wooden floors run through the interior, with an open fire in the dining room and a wood burner above an L-shaped sofa in the lounge. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, dishwasher, washing machine and a small enclosed garden. Dogs are welcome.

Kingsand and Cawsand are colour-washed twin villages sharing a single harbour on the Rame Peninsula. The Cawsand-Kingsand stream marked the Devon-Cornwall county boundary until 1844, and the Halfway House pub sat squarely on it. The Plymouth Sound passenger ferry runs from Cawsand Beach to the Barbican from Easter to October. Mount Edgcumbe Country Park and its 800-acre estate of formal gardens, deer and Tudor house is the obvious day out, and Whitsand Bay is 5.6km along the coast path.

Best for couples or two friends wanting a walkable village base with pubs and the beach on the doorstep. Less good for guests with mobility issues - three floors, narrow stairs, no parking on site.