Short answer: Ullacombe Farm beats every pub here with children — play areas indoors and out, and £1 to feed the goats. The Cromwell Arms has a good beer garden and is well priced. Home Farm Café has picnic tables outside and handles vegan and gluten-free properly.
It is a farm café rather than a pub, and with children that is the point. Play areas indoors and out, goats to feed for £1, and an on-site butcher. On the edge of Dartmoor, having an indoor play option is worth more than a beer garden you cannot sit in.
Good beer garden, well priced, with rooms upstairs if you are staying. It is the town pub and it does the job — on a dry day the garden is where to be with children.
In the Parke estate, strong on vegan and gluten-free, with picnic tables outside. The outdoor tables and the estate around them mean children can move without being in anybody's way, which is usually the whole battle.
Sofas and magazines upstairs and bike storage inside, which makes it the one if you have cycled. The thing to know is that lunch does not start before 12.15 — arrive at noon with hungry children and you will wait.
If the weather has beaten you, the House of Marbles is free, open seven days a week and has a licensed restaurant and café on site, with marble runs to occupy children between courses. That is a better wet-afternoon plan than squeezing into a busy pub.
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