 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Updown Cottage, Shaftesbury Dorset, England It stands at the top of the most famously cobbled hill in the country. Park your car at the bottom and puff your way up - just like the Hovis boy in the ad. Centuries ago it was a butchers; now it glows with stylishness and care. The interior spreads itself over four floors: all low beams, oak floorboards and deep-enough-to-hide-in recesses. Pale walls juxtapose with rich silks and tapestries, carved oak mirrors and reclamation finds. Downstairs is a farmhouse kitchen with wooden worktops and modern Aga. Pop a coffee pod in the Nespresso machine; breakfast on welcome cereals, marmalade and organic bread from the deli; fling open the glass doors to the steeply terraced garden and heavenly views over Blackmore Vale. There’s a music room with a baby grand, a sitting room with a wood-burner. On the first floor are two single rooms - white bedding, dashes of colour - and a double with a deep window seat overlooking the hill. Up more stairs to the master room, its Egyptian cotton-covered bed hugging the rafters, its tiny shower room as immaculate as the rest. A bathroom with a washbasin set in a chunk of reclaimed elm and a wet room on the ground floor are further luxuries. Shaftesbury is a favourite with artists, writers and musicians, rich in history and cafés and restaurants.
|
Updown Cottage (nearest white cottage) on Gold Hill looking out over Blackmore Vale
‘Aqua’ with window seat looking on to Gold Hill
Bathroom
Dining room leading into the hillside garden Photo captions have been written by the owner or management of Updown Cottage and are not verified or endorsed by ASP.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
