Throop Hollow Farm

The park’s rural but well-placed location means it’s a brill base for navigating your way around the Dorset countryside and its stunning 95-mile Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Kick off explores inland in Dorchester (20 minutes’ drive), the county’s main market town, which has a history dating back to the Iron Age and a host of excellent places to eat. Down by the seaside, Weymouth (half an hour) is another spot with an abundance of things to see and do – head here for a stretch of sand lined in Georgian houses, the revolving Jurassic Skyline viewing tower and the panoramas from the Victorian-era Nothe Fort. For more beaches, bound over to Studland and Shell Bay or swing by the seaside resort of Swanage (half an hour) before jumping on a ferry to the buff Brownsea Island just off shore. You could also make tracks to Corfe Castle on a heritage steam railway from Swanage, ending up at a sweet village and some spectacular 11th-century ruins.