Enjoy exclusive tours of three outstanding and contrasting historic properties amidst the beautiful countryside of north Dorset.

Enjoy an owner-led guided tour of a perfect hidden gem, the Old Rectory, Manston, a beautiful country house and family home with period features, lovely paintings and Georgian furniture in a beautiful setting surrounded by crisp hedges of yew, beech and hornbeam that have been used to create a series of garden rooms. Notable features of the garden are the luxuriant 120-foot herbaceous border, the kitchen garden within the old Victorian walls and a knot garden. 

Milton Abbey School by Adrian King, CC BY-SA 2.0 <;, via Wikimedia Commons

Later discover Milton Abbey, set in a sublime landscape, one of Capability Brown’s finest. The Saxon King Athelstan, camping on the hill overlooking the Abbey, is said to have had a vision that he would defeat the Danes in a coming battle. The vision came true and he became the first King of all England. In gratitude, he founded the church in AD 934. Thirty years later, King Edgar, impressed by the revival of monasticism in England under St Dunstan, installed monks in place of the secular priests and made an Abbey of the Church. St Catherine's Chapel was constructed in the 11th century on the spot where Athelstan is said to have had his vision. Our tour will include the Abbey, St Catherine's Chapel, the State Rooms in the Mansion House and the 15th century Abbot's Hall. 

Gaunt's House by Lorraine and Keith Bowdler, CC BY-SA 2.0 <;, via Wikimedia Commons

Later visit Gaunts House, a red-brick mansion built around 1752. Our tour will include the ground floor reception rooms including the large drawing room, the old hall, library, ballroom and conservatory, old smoking room, dining room, reception and tea station.

Tickets £80 including a two-course lunch at the Plough Inn, Manston

Lunch options to be made available to attendees in June