a thatched cottage on the heath above Studland bay

The cottage sits high on the heath above Studland, set back from the lane behind a low bank of gorse, its long roof carried in water reed and combed to a sharp eave above small-paned windows. The walls are cob and brick, thick enough to hold the cool of the morning into the afternoon, and the front door opens straight into a flagged hall where the floor dips a little towards the inglenook. Much of the plan is as it was built — low lintels, a bread oven left in the chimney breast, beams adzed rather than sawn — but a previous owner added a garden room to the south gable, glazed on three sides, so that the heath and the water beyond are part of the room rather than a view framed by it.

From the upper floor the ground falls away towards Studland Bay and the Purbeck cliffs, with Old Harry's chalk stacks to the east and the Isle of Wight a grey line on a clear day. The light here is particular: the heather turns the foreground violet in late summer, and the bay holds the evening long after the lane is in shadow. The four bedrooms are arranged along the roofline, the principal taking the southern end with the best of the outlook; the smaller rooms keep their original board doors and latches. Three reception rooms — a sitting room around the inglenook, a panelled dining room, and the later garden room — give the house more space than its modest frontage suggests.

The grounds run to a little over an acre, mostly informal: rough grass given over to the heath, a walled kitchen garden on the warm side of the house, and a stand of Scots pine that shelters the cottage from the south-westerlies. Beyond the boundary the land is National Trust, open heath and bridleway running down towards the dunes and the beach, so the setting is held in perpetuity and the cottage will keep its solitude. Thatch of this age asks for stewardship rather than convenience, and the house is offered to someone who understands the difference.