This cottage sits on a 2000-acre estate where walking trails through the woodlands bring you to waterfalls, lochs and the craggy coastline of Dumfries and Galloway. A forty-minute stroll down a forest track brings you to a deserted beach, and the coastal town of Portpatrick is a twenty-minute walk away. A welcome pack of local produce – eggs, butter, bread, home baking, artisanal cheese and the estate’s handmade toiletries – awaits you on arrival. Perhaps head out to the sunny dining spot on the lawn for your first meal. Here you’ll find a fire pit to keep the evening chill at bay. The home itself is beautifully decorated. The living room is like a wild meadow with its magenta and violet mural of wild birds and flowers and pot plants seem to fill every nook. Yet there’s a grand feeling to the tufted velvet sofas, and the writer’s desk in the corner is an Edwardian antique from Dunskey Castle itself. Once the wood-burner is crackling away it’s super cosy too. Come bedtime, bedrooms are a fairytale fantasy with plush beds fit for a princess. Especially the twin room, with silk drapes flowing over the beds. With deer, pheasants and wild birds filling forest walks, you can feel like you’ve stepped right into a Disney movie.

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