Semi-detached with the owner’s part of her cottage but offering ample privacy to its guests, Abbotts Cottage provides excellent accommodation for a couple with a single chair bed offering sleeping for a third person.

Entrance from the garden into a small lobby (NB. low doorway). Sitting room with Jotul woodburning stove and window seat. Spacious fully fitted kitchen/dining room with French windows leading out to a private, west facing garden with paved patio area, barbecue and orchard beyond. Downstairs shower room/wc. Enclosed, twisty staircase from sitting room (NB. steep, narrow treads) leading directly into an enchanting double bedroom, which in turn leads through to a 2nd bedroom/dressing room with single chair bed or space for a cot.

Named after the family that lived here for four generations, Abbotts Cottage is quietly situated along a winding country lane in the parish of Stour Provost, 3½ miles from Gillingham (main line railway station to London) and 4 miles from the Saxon hilltop town of Shaftesbury.

The west end of the cottage has recently been completely refurbished and harmoniously extended to provide a self-catering cottage to a particularly high specification. The accommodation is a contrast of old and new; the original part – sitting room and both bedrooms – is simple, unfussy yet full of charm, while the extension, comprising a light, spacious and very well equipped dining room, leading out to the garden, is contemporary in style with a polished, limestone floor, honed granite work surfaces and integral appliances. There is also a brand new a shower room/wc.

Stour Provost lies in the valley of the River Stour, some eight miles south of its source at Stourhead (National Trust), where magnificent gardens and lakes were laid out in the 18th century. Following the Stour on its journey south will bring you to the large natural harbour of Poole on the Dorset coast with the whole of the magnificent World Heritage Jurassice coastline stretching westwards from here. Inland, there are plenty of visitor attractions within easy driving distance of the village – Old Wardour Castle, Sherborne Castles (‘old’ and ‘new’), Kingston Lacy, The Cerne Abbas Giant, Longleat, Wilton House to name but a few. There’s some stunning, surrounding countryside to explore too - the ancient, sparsely populated Cranborne Chase, the great chalk ridges, which afford magnificent views across Dorset, and the fertile, low lying, Blackmoor Vale.

Comments from previous visitors.

"Fantastic! Delightful, lovely cottage, very thoughtful touches with a very lovely owner." Mrs N Douglas, September 2008