Westward Living is a family owned business offering luxurious self-catering holiday cottages in Westward Ho! North Devon. The proprietors Kathy and Chris Murdoch live with their three sons,  Raffles the soppy black Labrador & Winston & Pepper the cheeky pugs within the grounds. Both Kathy and Chris are passionate about their local area of Westward Ho! and love nothing more than sharing their local knowledge and hospitality to guests.

Kathy has many years’ experience in the holiday industry, originally at her family's Kingsley Park holiday camp in Westward Ho! before working as cabin crew with Virgin Atlantic where she met Chris who was a licensed aircraft engineer (and why he is so great at maintenance!). Historically Duckhaven Stud was a racehorse training yard run by Kathy's now retired father Alan Smith.

The cottages are located within the grounds of an ex working thoroughbred racing yard which was called Duckhaven Stud. With the exception of Paddocks, Furlong and the Gallops, all our cottages are named after winning horses were trained and bred by Alan who lives in the main farmhouse.

We have many glorious horses residing at Duckhaven, when Alan retired so did all the horses, they do still live on site and enjoy the best views over the North Devon Coastline with plenty of love and attention from the family and our guests!

Kathy and Chris spent many years living and working overseas in Asia and New Zealand before returning to Kathy’s family home, this experience gave them the opportunity to visit many accommodation providers and ignited the passion to create a unique home from home experience for their guests here in North Devon.

When they launched Westward Living back in 2009, the couple were frustrated that the village of Westward Ho! was not getting very good press, so together with Alan the family purchased the centre of the village and regenerated Westward Ho! with the Latitude 51 development.  This brave and ambitious move, kick started regeneration in the village and also won the family the prestigious Winner of Winner Awards at the Devon Tourism Awards in 2011 for “putting the Ho! back in to Westward Ho!”

Inclusivity is at the heart of every project the couple create, everyone is welcome at Westward Living and whilst they are here they are made to feel like friends.

We are always open to ideas so please let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve our offering we’d love to hear from you!

We look forward to welcoming you to North Devon's precious gem - Westward Ho!