House style

Super-luxurious barn conversion.

Grounds

At the heart of 200 acres of pristine West Dorset farmland.

Sleeps

12 in six en-suite bedrooms (or 24 if rented with Burggraaf).

Ideal for

Stylish house parties, stag/hen breaks, family gatherings and big birthday celebrations.

Rates

Weekend from £2,500; midweek from £2,500; one week from £3,750 (low season), from £5,750 (high season), from £6,000 over Christmas and New Year.

Minimum hire

Three days. Check-in from 5pm, check-out at 10am.

Also

Also The property is non-smoking. Pets are welcome by special arrangement.

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Interior

Bedrooms 

There are six double bedrooms, with wood flooring, and aubergine and violet colour schemes.

Bedroom 1: Master bedroom – the largest double at the end of the first floor passage, with an en-suite bathroom.
Bedroom 2: Slightly larger first-floor double by the gallery, with an en-suite bathroom.
Bedroom 3: First floor double, with over-bed skylight and en-suite bathroom.
Bedroom 4: First floor double, with en-suite shower room.
Bedroom 5: Large ground floor double at the end of the passage, with en-suite bathroom.
Bedroom 6: Large ground floor double to the side of the living room, with en-suite bathroom.  

Kitchen Fully equipped with double oven and electric hobs, microwave, dishwasher, two fridges and freezer. The kitchen is pre-stocked with tea, coffee, sugar and milk, together with a clotted-cream tea ready for your arrival. Feel free to pre-order a supermarket delivery, otherwise the house can arrange for the fridge to be filled with all your favourite things. For self-catering supplies, see our ‘Services’ section.

Living room An aubergine-colour-scheme dream that includes a 42-inch TV with Sky+, DVD and CD system. An enormous remote-controlled ribbon fireplace provides a roaring winter fire, while a spotlit gallery to the bedrooms and a double-height ceiling with skylights stretches above soft brown and taupe daybeds, and sofas adorned with silk sleep-inducing cushions.

Dining room Comfortable cream chairs huddle around a huge dining table for 12 in the open-plan living room. Doors open onto a spotlit gravel courtyard, with its lush backdrop of rolling green hills.

Other Next to the kitchen, your private spa with indoor swimming pool awaits. As there’s no other guests to share – or be forced to play nicely with – this is your own exclusive pool, sauna, steam room and gym. There are even two professional treatment rooms, should you wish to book massages or other therapy treats. There’s also a games room upstairs, with a pool table that can cheekily transform into a roulette game.

Outdoor

Gardens Acres of rolling green fields envelop you, while your landscaped courtyard boasts a dining table for 12, fire pit and cedar hot tub that’s just waiting to be jumped into. A raised lawn area just above is the ideal spot for a marquee.

Parking There is ample parking for plenty of cars.

Other Ask if you can go and say hello to the 11 horses in the stables behind the property.

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Getting there

Trains Trains from London Waterloo to Crewkerne run every hour, and take two and a half hours. From Crewkerne, it’s a 10-minute drive to the house.

Local taxi service Craig’s Taxis (+44 (0)1308 861000). The house can arrange a pick-up or taxi for you from the train station. For car hire, click on our Travel Offers page. Smithcard holders get a 10 per cent discount with Hertz.

Directions by road Directions can be sent to you by the house upon booking but, for your records, here are the directions from nearby Crewkerne. On the A356, go through Crewkerne village, then turn right onto Market Street at the mini roundabout. Immediately bear left (passing Natwest on your right), taking the A356 towards Dorchester. Pass Crewkerne train station and a post office, then take the A3066 right towards Bridport. You’re five and a half miles away now… Going through Mosterton, turn left onto the A3066 towards Beaminster. After the ‘Tractors Turning’ sign, take the left turn (before the tunnel), signposted to Maiden Newton. Drive up this lane (don’t miss the views to your right) and take the third drive on your left (after approximately one mile). The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sign for Axnoller Farm is in front of a clearer sign on a tree: ‘Chaple Marsh Farm’.

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Slip beneath the warm waters of your indoor pool as an orange sun rises above a backdrop of violet clouds and rolling green hills: the perfect serene start to your luxurious Voltaire escape. An 18th-century barn conversion tucked in the patchwork-quilt landscape of Axnoller Farm, this immaculate stone property sleeps 12 and boasts a private no-need-to-share spa, in which we defy you not to spend the lion’s share of your stay. Pristine limestone floors and polished plaster walls ooze and spread around your very own swimming pool, sauna, steam room and treatment rooms, while a loaded gym upstairs tempts you to work off any excesses. This is a sharp, minimalist, deadly designer hideaway, that’s both richly luxurious and extremely comfortable. But there’s no real need for magniloquence here. Three words will do: pure secluded splendour.

A settlement of 14 houses back in mediaeval days, Axnoller Farm, with its brought-back-to-life barn Voltaire, has its wellies planted firmly in the 18th century. And it enjoys a prime position in 200 acres of jaw-droppingly beautiful countryside. Originally a dairy farm, and surrounded by generations upon generations of neighbouring farm families, you’re very much in huntin’, shootin’ an’ fishin’ territory here… with a Dorset – not southern American – drawl, of course.

Enter the stone barn and an immediate sense of the very special encircles, traps and reels you in. The ground floor consists of an open-plan living room, kitchen and dining area, yet with absolutely no compromise on space. It’s huge. Double-height ceilings and an upstairs gallery preside over gleaming glass lamps, limestone floors and a white spotlit kitchen so flawless that it has surely never been used before. Everything here is on a big scale: the enormous Buddha head, the cinema-huge, 42-inch TV, the 20ft-high, hand-painted mock flock design – etched so delicately on the wall that at first you barely notice it’s there… It all unfurls around you, making you want to stand in the middle, throw your arms out and start spinning, in order to take it all in.

Aubergine-coloured undertones, overtones and all-aroundtones thread from this space throughout the rest of the barn. Deep brown-and-taupe sofas and daybeds are piled high with silk cushions lined with delicate piping, and you can crouch before a winter-perfect remote-controlled ribbon fire that dances along a purple wall. It’s a glamorous yet relaxed space that would suit self-catering sophisticates as perfectly as groups of families with children. This barn was made for extravagance and entertaining.

Throw the barn doors open wide onto the immaculate landscaped courtyard with its outdoor dining table for 12, barbecue, cedar hot tub and fire pit – and you also have access to your own lawn that’s just crying out to host a wedding reception, birthday party or anniversary bash. More than 12 in your party? Hire sister barn Burggraaf – it sleeps a further 12, has dining room space for 24 – and enjoys its own pool, meaning you still won’t have to share yours…

Journey up into Voltaire’s heavenly upper levels and engineered walnut floors steer you around bedrooms in which marshmallow-soft kingsize beds drown with lost-count-of-the-threads Egyptian bedlinen, Andrew Martin fabrics and jewel-fringed silk cushions. Further flock motifs, hand-painted by Adrian Everitt, swirl in aubergine and violet hues, while Chinese lacquered trunks and leather-covered dressing tables teem with plasma screens, suede chairs and sumptuous throws. Pristine, boutique-hotel-style bathrooms, punctuated with Aromatherapy Associates goodies, are limestone cubes of deep tubs, cubist taps and fluffy bathrobes. This is about as far away from self-catering as it gets.

In this, the heart of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall country, where many locals enjoy an organic, self-sufficient way of life in a dramatic Dorset setting, there’s nothing for it but to surrender to The Good Life yourself. So kick your wellies off, step inside and settle down to your ‘welcome home’ clotted-cream tea arrival – because something tells us you won’t be leaving this barn for a while.

Reviewed by Charlotte Crisp

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