Don your wellies and get down to Dorset for a good old-fashioned farm stay. A holiday at Mount Pleasant Farm gives you the chance to dip into country life with as much or as little mud as you want. Mount Pleasant, you see, is a Feather Down Farm which means your country life is cushioned but still authentic. You can get stuck in and help with pony grooming and feeding the lambs or simply settle down in your deckchair to read a good book with a soundtrack of mooing cows.
As a Feather Down farm, Mount Pleasant is part of a network of farm stays offering off-grid holidays in roomy safari tents (or ‘tented cottages’ as the Feather Down team likes to call them). Lit only by candles and oil lamps, the rustic but homely accommodation is provided by Feather Down and invariably lovely with log burners and cute kids’ cupboard bedrooms as particular highlights. Here they have en-suite shower rooms and toilets too. And while the well-set up accommodation varies little from place to place, the on-site experience is as unique as the farms with hosting left in the capable hands of Feather Down’s partner farmers.
Here, that’s the Miller Family. They welcome you to the farm and show you to your tent pointing out their ponies, pigs, poultry, cows and sheep along the way. There are just five tents here and while Dorset’s coast bustles in the summer holidays this countryside location offers a peaceful rural retreat. You can still spend days on the fossil-strewn beach of the Jurassic Coast as it’s just a half-hour drive away, but come the evening you’ll be back on the farm, watching wildlife, listening to the farm animals and enjoying the very pleasant surroundings of Mount Pleasant Farm.
You can work up an appetite on some glorious walks close to site including a hike to the top of the nearest hill, Bulbarrow, which is 274 metres above sea level, one of the highest points in Dorset and home to Iron Age Hill Fort, Rawlsbury Camp. The closest town is Sturminster Newton, where there's a 17th-century watermill (01258 473760), museum (01258 471878), and weir. The market town Blandford Forum is a 25-minute drive (11 miles from site) and the county town of Dorchester is just over half-an-hour's drive away. If you feel like venturing further, Corfe Castle (01929 481294), Old Wardour Castle (0370 3331181) and the beaches of the Jurassic Coast are all within 25 miles. The closest is Ringstead Bay. Monkey World (01929 462537) is just over 30 minutes' drive away and, for more exotic animals, Longleat Safari Park (01985 844400) is just over an hour away.
The closest shop is in Sturminster Newton, five miles from site. The village also has a selection of pubs: The Fiddleford Inn (0258 472886), the 15th-century Bull Tavern (01258 472435) and the White Hart Alehouse (01258 472558). A recommended option is The Fox Inn (01258 880328) at Lower Antsy (four miles) and closer to site is The Ibberton (01258 817956), two miles away.