The two canvas tents are in the middle of the historic Stalbridge Park, in Dorset, amongst the heavenly woodland on a working farm.

Note the lions on the pillars as you enter - this is safari in the West Country.

Stalbridge Park has an interesting history stretching back several hundred years.

In 1620 a grand Jacobean Manor was built and was later sold to the Earl of Cork, whose son was Sir Robert Boyle, of Boyle's Law fame - one of the great scientist of all time who established the relationship between gas and pressure.

A few generations later, The Earl of Uxbridge inherited Stalbridge Park.  He entered into the history when commanding the cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo in 1805.  

The Earl was considered one of the hardest riding men of his generation.

He was on his horse commanding the cavalry, next to the Duke of Wellington, when a shell blew the Earl's leg off.  The Earl did not react.  Wellington looked down at where his leg was, and remarked 'By God Sir, your leg has gone'.  The Earl nonchantly looked down and said, 'By God so it has'.

The story goes on that they took him back to dressing lines, where he refused all pain relief (rum). The doctor who operated on him (sawed the rest of the leg off while he was fully conscious) and later reported it was like operating on a dead man.  Three weeks later he was back riding.  The saw has been kept to this day.

By 1820 the house was in a poor state of repair, and so was unfortunately pulled down and the stone put into the now famous walls and the Georgian farmhouse that stands today.

The Park has been inspiration to several writers, Thomas Hardy with Stapleford Park and Enid Blighton, Five on Finniston Farm - Stalbridge Park is the location of the ruined castle.  Enid Blighton lived in a nearby Dorset village of Stourton Caundle.

There are numerous other interesting stories, legends and even several ghost stories that can wait to be told around the camp fire or ranging across the country on a horse.