FINDING somewhere to stay for a pre-Christmas London shopping or theatre break can be quite a challenge – so we want to share a real find! There are the great hotels, but these are outside the price range of most people; there are basic chains, which are OK for the quick overnight stay if all…
THERE is something special about autumn, that “season of mellow fruitfulness” before the razzle-dazzle and expense of Christmas and the long cold grey months till spring. Partly it is the gorgeous colours but also it is that slightly melancholy time of saying goodbye to migrating birds, seeing the cows go back into their winter quarters…
ATHELHAMPTON House, just outside Puddletown, must surely be one of Dorset’s most beautiful manor houses. Comparatively unsung, it is a place of under-stated but pure beauty and stands in the most breathtaking gardens. Built by Sir William Martyn, the earliest parts of the house are Tudor, and it was restored and transformed in the late…
THE Meaden family from Minchington, on Cranborne Chase, has completed a full restoration of a traditional fingerpost sign in the small hamlet near Sixpenny Handley. Bill Meaden, owner of Cranborne Chase Cider, and his father Simon paid for the refurbishment which was carried out with the skills of Adam Batty and Graham Cradock. The restoration…
WE tend to take our national treasures for granted and perhaps it is only when we have visitors from overseas that we see ourselves through their eyes. But one way to make the most of Britain’s extraordinarily rich historic, architectural and landscape heritage is to take out membership of one or more of the organisations…
IT is a very long way from Mere in Wiltshire to Mongolia. It is not just the thousands of miles – daunting though they are – but the massive difference in language, culture, history and geography between northern Europe and one of the most remote regions of the Far East. But when farmers market member…
ITALY and art have always made a perfect blend – but in a small village called Dozza, the two go together in a rather surprising way.
IF your idea of a life on the ocean waves is looking out at the sea from the comfort of a panoramic window seat, with somebody cooking up a storm in the kitchen to satisfy your gourmet cravings, then The Lugger Hotel at Portloe could be your crock of gold at the end of the…