DAY ONE - TRANSFER FROM YOUR HOTEL OR AIRPORT TO DORSET Your own car will collect you and bring you to Dorset, so you can settle in to your accommodation. The next few days will introduce you to houses that are very different in age and character and to the people who built and lived in them. DAY TWO - ATHELHAMPTON HOUSE AND CORFE CASTLE You start your week with a visit to Athelhampton House with its five acres of award-winning gardens, including four walled formal gardens. The historic Tudor Great Hall was built by Sir William Martyn in 1485 and extended during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and has more than twenty historic rooms to visit. Later we travel to Corfe Castle, whose ruined walls still dominate the village below. One was built for comfortable living, the other was designed to command the surrounding country. Both have plenty of stories to tell. DAY THREE - KINGSTON LACY AND LULWORTH CASTLE A visit to Kingston Lacy near Wimborne, a lavish family home re-imagined as a Venetian Palace in the rural Dorset countryside. Built in 1663, the house is now in the care of The National Trust and is noted for its Old Master paintings (including Rubens, Van Dyck and Titian) and a significant collection of Egyptian antiquities assembled by William John Bankes. Afterwards we head towards the coast for Lulworth Castle, built as a hunting lodge in the seventeenth century and sadly partly destroyed by fire in the early C20th. Its setting is part of the pleasure of visiting. DAY FOUR - SHERBORNE CASTLE Today you visit Sherborne Castle which was built in 1594 by Sir Walter Raleigh. Acquired by the Digby family in 1617 and enlarged in the 1620s, it stands in 18th-century parkland featuring a landscaped lake by Lancelot “Capability” Brown and the grounds also contain the ruins of the 12th-century Sherborne Old Castle. Today it remains the Wingfield Digby family home. Afterwards we will visit the town itself where you can spend time exploring the historic streets lined with independent shops and cafes. DAY FIVE - STOURHEAD HOUSE AND GARDENS A full day today as we sneak over the border into Wiltshire to visit the truly magnificent Stourhead house and gardens. One of the first grand Palladian houses to be built in England it was built for the banker Henry Hoare in 1721. Its world-famous landscaped gardens feature temples, a lake and grotto and wonderful vistas around every corner. DAY SIX - FORDE ABBEY AND MAPPERTON For your final trip we head to the far west of Dorset to visit medieval Forde Abbey. This privately owned former Cistercian monastery was founded in the 12th century and dissolved in 1539. In the mid-17th century Edmund Prideaux converted the surviving monastic ranges into a country house, noted for its state rooms with rich plaster ceilings and Mortlake tapestries. The 30-acre gardens include the Centenary Fountain which, at 160 ft high, is billed as the highest powered fountain in England. Afterwards we continue to Mapperton, where the house looks down over Italianate terraces and a wooded valley. It is an unhurried final day among some of Dorset’s most characterful estates. DAY SEVEN - DEPARTURE After breakfast it is time to head back to your overnight hotel or the airport.