Pilgrims Retreat@Hill Barn Farm

Location: Charminster Dorchester Dorset DT2 7SG Dorset

Type: Private Home  /  Offers accommodation? No  /  

Open: Appointment only  /  Garden Capacity: 12

Garden Description:

Four peaceful acres set in arable chalk upland beneath the Waterston Ridge just north of Dorchester, with a woodland, nature pond, formal terrace, kitchen garden and small orchard. There is plenty of parking, a kitchenette and loo available for guests at the house.

In the quiet and stillness guests may encounter hares, pheasant harems, red-legged grouse, nuthatches, tree-creepers, green and greater-spotted woodpeckers. Fieldfares flock down for lawn leather-jackets and mallard drakes squabble over the ladies while swallows swoop over the water from their three-brood-nests in the eaves.

The lavender garden is abuzz in summer and a collection of David Austin roses is nurtured, including most of the Thomas Hardy varieties.

The artist-owner’s eternity-loop bronzes are displayed along a ‘Mobius Walk’, each with a triangular cross-section but only one edge and one plane, representing the Trinity, truly three in one. Various stone sculptures give pause for thought and in the rain shadow of some tall fir trees, fifteen painted doors recount the events of Easter with a stations of the cross narrative.

Host: Ali Hutchison

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Telephone: 07854750505  / 

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