Short answer: Totnes Museum is free, and Leechwell Garden — a community garden with climbing equipment, a sandpit and a stream — costs nothing. Totnes Rare Breeds Farm is cheap, and you feed the animals for a pound a bag. Skip the station car park.
Totnes Museum and Archives is a packed local museum in a genuinely remarkable Elizabethan building on Fore Street, run by volunteers — and free. There is a room on Charles Babbage among the local history.
Leechwell Garden is a community garden tucked behind the town with wooden climbing equipment, a sandpit and a shallow stream children can paddle in. Free, and quieter than anything on the High Street.
Totnes Rare Breeds Farm is small and family-run, reached through the steam railway station, with pigs, goats, owls, guinea pigs and ponies — most of which you can feed for a pound a bag. It is the best-value paid attraction in this corner of Devon.
The steam railway station car park is around £7.50. There is free parking on the nearby industrial estate. On a £50 budget that is fifteen per cent of your day back.
Totnes Castle is English Heritage — paid unless you are a member, and short rather than long. The view from the keep is the best in town. Worth it if you are members; skippable if you are counting.
The single biggest saving on any Devon day out is lunch. A picnic on a free beach or in a free park turns a £50 day into a £25 one, and the money you keep pays for the one thing actually worth paying for.
The Waterside Bistro on the Plains is open ten till ten and good with young children. Bruto Lounge does good coffee. The River Shack at Stoke Gabriel does breakfasts and wood-fired pizzas.
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