Chettle

Chettle House is a Grade I listed country manor house with Queen Anne style architecture in Chettle, North Dorset, England, about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of the town of Blandford Forum. It was built in 1710 for George Chafin, to designs of the architect Thomas Archer. The builders were William and Francis Smith from Warwick.The property was bought by the banker William Castleman in 1846, who together with his solicitor son Charles Castleman built the first railway into Dorset in 1845–47 (the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, which was known as "Castleman's Corkscrew" because of its convoluted route). By that time the house "was a ruin used for storing grain, sans floors, ceilings or fireplaces", according to a 2019 report. During the renovations, the family modified some of the interior layout; that included lowering the north and south wings.Pevsner called it "the plum among Dorset houses of the early 18th century, and even nationally outstanding as a specimen of English Baroque".In 1946, the property was inherited by Esther Bourke who eventually converted it into a series of flats. As of 2010, the property was still owned by the Bourke family, who were also long-time owners of the entire community in a form of "benevolent feudalism".In May 2015, the manor was listed for sale at a guide price of £3.95m, and soon sold, "reputedly for more than 50% above the guide price", and was described by Country Life as "arguably, the country-house sale of 2015". The article described the property as "the magnificent, 14,580sq ft mansion, set in 117 acres of gardens, grounds, parkland and woodland, needed substantial renovation". The new owners planned to restore the house into a single family private home.As of late 2020, the owners were Tom and Rosamond Sweet-Escott, who received a Georgian Group award the previous year for the restoration they had completed, with the guidance of Hugh Petter of Adam Architecture. A November 2020 article in Country Life highlighted the results of the work and documented them with photographs.

Farnham is a village and civil parish in North Dorset, in the south of England, on Cranborne Chase, seven miles (eleven kilometres) northeast of Blandford Forum. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 183.

The Thickthorn Down Long Barrows are two Neolithic long barrows, near the village of Gussage St Michael in Dorset, England. They are near the south-western end of the Dorset Cursus, a Neolithic feature. The long barrows are a scheduled monument.

Eastbury Park was a country estate near Tarrant Gunville in Dorset, England. It contained a large mansion designed by Sir John Vanbrugh. The mansion has not survived, but its former service wing has become a country house known as Eastbury House, a Grade I listed building.

Tarrant Hinton is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It is situated in the Tarrant Valley, approximately five miles (eight kilometres) northeast of Blandford Forum. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 160.The village's name appears in medieval sources. In 935, King Æthelstan granted land at Tarrant Hinton to the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey under condition that they would pray hard for the king.The village no longer has a public house, shop or post office, but it has a medieval parish church and a newly rebuilt village hall. In 2001 the ecclesiastical parish of Tarrant Hinton was grouped with nine other surrounding parishes to form the Chase Benefice in the Anglican Diocese of Salisbury. Tarrant Hinton is well known as the location of the Great Dorset Steam Fair, which is annually visited by some 200,000 people. There is a local church benefice newsletter published regularly called the Tarrant Times.

Larmer Tree Festival was a three-day music, comedy and arts festival held annually from 1990 until 2019 at the Larmer Tree Gardens, near Tollard Royal on the Wiltshire-Dorset border in England. The 2020 festival was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the event was not held in 2021, 2022 or 2023. Performers included Paloma Faith, Jake Bugg, First Aid Kit, Tom Odell, KT Tunstall, Tom Jones, Kae Tempest, Jools Holland and Gomez.

The Larmer Tree Gardens near Tollard Royal in south Wiltshire, England, were created by landowner Augustus Pitt Rivers in 1880 as pleasure grounds for "public enlightenment and entertainment". They were the first private gardens opened for public enjoyment in the United Kingdom, and were free to enter. The 11-acre (4.5 ha) Grade II* listed gardens are within the Rushmore Estate in Cranborne Chase, an ancient royal hunting ground and now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Tarrant Launceston is a small village and civil parish in north Dorset, England, situated in the Tarrant Valley 5 miles (8 kilometres) northeast of Blandford Forum. The parish includes part of Blandford Camp to the west and a few buildings on the northern edge of neighbouring Tarrant Monkton to the south. In the 2011 census the parish had 156 households and a population of 498.Although the Great Dorset Steam Fair is advertised as being located in Tarrant Hinton, the actual show site itself is in Tarrant Launceston, which is one of the adjacent parishes.

South Lodge Camp is an archaeological site of the Bronze Age, about 0.6 miles (1.0 km) south-east of the village of Tollard Royal, in Wiltshire, England. The site is on Cranborne Chase, near the boundary with Dorset. It is a scheduled monument.

Tarrant Gunville is a village and civil parish in north Dorset, England, situated at the head of the Tarrant Valley on Cranborne Chase five miles (eight kilometres) northeast of Blandford Forum. The parish covers 3,469 acres (1,404 hectares) at an elevation of 70 to 170 metres (230 to 560 feet). In the 2011 census the parish—which includes the settlement of Stubhampton to the north—had 119 dwellings, 108 households and a population of 233.The parish has three round barrows and an unexcavated Iron Age enclosure with a 15' deep ditch, which Pevsner suspects was built in a hurry. The medieval settlements in the parish were Stubhampton and Gunville. The parish church, dedicated to St Mary, is on the edge of Tarrant Gunville. It is on the site of an earlier building which probably dated from around 1100. The present building has a south porch, aisles and tower arch that are partly 14th-century, and a 15th-century west tower that was partly rebuilt in the 16th century, but the chancel and nave were rebuilt in 1843. The architect of the rebuilding was Thomas Henry Wyatt. Eastbury House, the surviving part of a much larger house designed by John Vanbrugh and built between 1717 and 1738, stands just east of Tarrant Gunville village. The larger part of the house was demolished in 1782. The grounds still display evidence of the original gardens, designed by Charles Bridgeman. It is probable that several of the ashlar and flint houses in the village were built using material taken from the demolished house. The photographer Thomas Wedgwood moved into the surviving part of Eastbury in 1800; his brother, the potter Josiah, had bought nearby Gunville House in 1799, shortly after its construction.The modern village hall was completed in 2001. There are 23 structures in the parish that are listed by English Heritage for their special historical or architectural interest. These include Eastbury House (Grade I) and the parish church (Grade II*).

King John's House is a former manor house in the south Wiltshire village of Tollard Royal, England. Just south of the church, the building has at its core a 13th-century hall house. Remodelling in the 16th and 17th centuries added wings, in part timber-framed. By 1811, it was described as a farmhouse. Augustus Pitt Rivers restored and extended the house, and opened it to the public around 1890 as a museum to display the finds from his excavations on Cranborne Chase, but by 1907 it was again a residence. Architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner describes the house as "memorable".The house was designated as Grade II* when it was listed in 1966. It lies within and is owned by the Rushmore Estate, which today operates it as a holiday let and a base for events such as weddings.

Woodcutts is a hamlet within the parish of Sixpenny Handley and is located in the north of Dorset, near to the Wiltshire border. Originally named "Woodcotes", in its present form the 18th century country estate still consists of the Manor House, the Manor Farm, a number of cottages, a school house and a chapel. It lies within the Cranborne Chase an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The estate and much of the land and several of the properties were bought and amalgamated with the neighbouring Rushmore Estate by its owner Augustus Pitt Rivers, a noted archaeologist of the 19th century, for the purpose of doing archeological research. Woodcutts includes the site of a Romano-British settlement excavated in 1884-5 by Pitt Rivers. The 1st Woodcutts Scouts group was founded in 1957 and provides activities for the young people of the area with Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorer sections.