Dorset

"Everybody tells you Dorset is a house or mansion county, not a church county...Yet when one sets down all one has seen of Dorset churches...one suddenly realises how much one has enjoyed", wrote Pevsner at the conclusion of his journey. The county provides many unexpected pleasures in ecclesiastical buildings, from the Norman arches of Wimborne Minster, the Early English solemnity of Milton Abbey, to the splendour of Sherborne and the monuments and furnishings of numerous smaller buildings. Of castles, mansions and houses, Dorset boasts the evocative ruins of Corfe; the splendid Kingston Lacy; mighty Milton Abbey House and a wealth of more modest homes. But the county also possesses fine towns and villages, from the Georgian elegance of Weymouth and Lyme Regis, to the model estate village of Milton Abbas.