Tom Dennis, the new star of War Horse, visits War Horse Valley

Tom Dennis who is set to play the central character ‘Albert Narracott’ in the new 2017 UK tour of the War Horse play, visited War Horse Valley today.

War Horse Valley Country Farm Park is located in a beautiful hidden part of Devon near Hatherleigh in West Devon boasting stunning scenery of rolling hills and valleys with Dartmoor as its magnificent backdrop.

The War Horse play is an adaption of Michael Morpurgo’s novel telling the story of a boy and his horse set against the backdrop of the First World War.

Tom’s previous starring role was playing Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Meeting the real Joey, he's not a puppet!

Tom and his parents enjoyed an action packed day at the farm including a trailer ride, trying his hand at milking the herd of dairy cows, he helped feed the baby calves, met Joey the horse and also saw the newborn piglets.

War Horse Valley, located at Parsonage Farm has been farmed by the same family for nearly 100 years and is the setting of the book War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, along with the parish of Iddesleigh.

There is a tearoom serving Devonshire cream teas and cakes, a farm shop, farm trail, a five hundred year old cob barn housing exhibitions on World War I, World War I style trench with sound effects, War Horse the book, movie and play, Farms for City Children the charity, Michael Morpurgo’s entire collection of stories, local history as well as an exhibition of how people farmed 100 years ago.

Lastly there are the animals for the guests to see. This includes visitors going on the daily tractor and trailer ride to see Bright the farm dog rounding up the organic dairy herd of cows for the afternoon milking, feeding the baby calves, petting our alpacas, pygme goats, rabbits, geese, ducks, chickens, sheep, fish, miniature pigs, ponies and our star of the farm, Joey the horse.

War Horse premiered at the National Theatre in 2007 and transferred to the New London Theatre in 2009 where it ran for seven years before closing in March last year.

The tour will visit Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Bristol Hippodrome (18 October to 11 November), Empire Theatre, Liverpool (15 November to 2 December), New Theatre, Oxford (13 December to 6 January), Brighton Centre (25 January to 10 February), Bradford Alhambra Theatre (14 February to 10 March), Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (14 March to 7 April), Edinburgh Festival Theatre (18 April to 12 May), Mayflower Theatre, Southampton (16 May to 9 June), The Lowry, Salford (13 to 30 June), Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (4 to 28 July), New Victoria Theatre, Woking (1 to 18 August), Plymouth Theatre Royal (29 August to 15 September), Milton Keynes Theatre (19 September to 6 October) and Glasgow SEC (15 January to 2 February 2019).

War Horse, which has been seen by over seven million people worldwide, has won 25 awards including the Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway.

Follow Tom and War Horse Valley on twitter @TheThomasDennis @warhorsevalley and visit the War Horse Valley website to see our news and updates: www.warhorsevalley.co.uk