This National Landscape (the new-fangled name for our AONBs) is like the Cotswolds without the crowds: an expanse of rolling hills, handsome villages and stately homes – minus the coach tours and hip hotels charging north of £500 for a standard double…
Over in the village of Wimborne St Giles, a couple of miles from Cranborne, the owners of the manor house have converted around half of its stable buildings (the rest still belong to the horses) into a trio of wonderful holiday apartments.
The main 17th-century Riding House is magnificent, a daring conversion featuring eight en-suite bedrooms – some where the animals once bedded down, others on mezzanine floors – and a vast living area filled with velvet sofas and a billiard table. We made do with one of two Groom’s Cottages, slightly more prosaic but still grand, with four-poster beds, giant copper bathtubs, chandeliers and the obligatory Aga.
