If you’re in search of ‘a comfortable and homely experience’, look no further than this former dower house in an ‘unspoilt’ estate village within the former royal hunting ground of Cranborne Chase. Trendy it is not, but it ‘captures an age of country house hospitality’ and ‘pampers its clients’. The building incorporates a 17th-century farmhouse, extended in the 1800s, with two-storey, Tudor-style canted bays. Drawing rooms have Regency plasterwork and a Jacobean fireplace from a cannibalised house in London. An impressive 18th-century staircase leads up to large bedrooms in a variety of styles, furnished with antiques, perhaps a four-poster. All have a power shower; three have a roll-top bath. A family room has bunks for the children. There is a daily-changing menu using local, home-grown and foraged produce, fruits from orchard and hedgerow, wild garlic, game from surrounding estates. Maybe venison stew braised in Six Penny ale, juniper, herby dumplings, garden greens. At breakfast there is freshly squeezed orange juice, Loch Fyne kippers, eggs any which way, home-baked bread. (B and JH)