The Secret of Englands highest waterfall

 Thomas Gard  finds a forgotten wonder in Devon

While most winter visitors to Devon head straight for the moors, few realise that the county also boasts the highest waterfall in England.  Canonteign Falls are one of the most under-valued wonders of the West Country landscape.  Two hundred and twenty feet of water tumbles over moss-covered rocks, surrounded by ferns and ancient woodland, in the spectacular Teign Valley on the cusp of Dartmoor.

The falls are not natural, rather they are a remarkable example of the Vicitorian penchant for spectacular and well-engineered garden follies.  The 3rd Lady Exmouth, who commissioned the falls in 1890, was a noted philanthropist.  When the local silver mining industry crashed, she wanted to create employment for redundant miners.  She oversaw the restoration of the leat that fed the nearby former mine workings, diverting its water to power a timber mill, as well as creating the impressive cascade.  Lady Exmouth also commissioned a holding reservoir to pipe clean water to the estate workers' cottages.

Chris Baylis, the present owner of Canonteign, is a commercial lawyer by trade.  He had never envisaged running a tourist attraction when, 13 years ago, he first sought out a Devon retreat away from the hurly-burly of Londonlife.

When he bought Canonteign House, the spectacular but increasingly decrepit ancestral home of the Exmouth family, it came only with the grounds that immediately surrounded the house.

 The glory days of the estate, which covered some 2,000 acres in its Victorian prime, were long gone.  Lord and Lady Exmouth had already abandoned their decaying home and its vast leaky lead roof for a more manageable lodge in the woods.  However, they retained the falls, which they ran as an increasingly tired tourist destination.  Until just a few years ago, the current Lady Exmouth could regularly be found manning the admission booth.

Baylis and his wife, Kate, resolved to piece together as much of the original estate as possible as a legacy for their three young children.

When Lord and Lady Exmouth finally retired, buying the falls was the last piece of the jigsaw to fall into place.  The Baylises are now concentrating on bringing Canonteign back to something like its former glory.  The local Wildlife Trust and the Forestry Commission have been brought in to advise and help rejuvenate the ponds, parkland and woodland walks.

"We could undoubtedly run the falls and the woodlands as much more of a commercial venture if we wanted to rent out the lodges and so on", Chris Baylis says. "But this is a real sanctuary, and as England seems to get busier and busier, there are fewer and fewer pockets like this left".