Cedar Hollow Dorset
The woodland map
Thirteen acres, three treehouses and one path down. Here is how the ground is arranged, so you know where you are going before you get out of the car.
The site reads as a single spine: you come in at the top, at the car park, and everything else hangs off the path that runs downhill from there. Get that straight and you cannot really go wrong.
Top of the woods
The car park sits at the very top, off the lane. Park along the hedge, nose in. There is a 13-amp trickle charge point here for electric cars.
The pedestrian gate is the small wooden one on the left. Not the field gate, and not the vehicular track across the meadow — that one is for maintenance only.
The workshop, under its parachute shelter, is the first thing you reach on the way down. If you arrive before 4pm this is where to sit and wait.
The camp centre
Five minutes down the path, the ground opens out. This is the only part of the site that everybody passes through, and it holds the three things you need:
- The in/out board — slate tabs, one per treehouse. Move yours to ‘in’ when you arrive and to ‘departed’ when you leave. In an emergency it is the only record of who is in the woods.
- The duty phone number, posted below the board. Check it on arrival; it changes.
- The woodland shop — cider, fizz, frozen pizza dough, kindling and firelighters, on an honesty system, open whenever you are awake.
The log store is here too. Refills are free to guests, so help yourself whenever the basket runs low.
The three treehouses
From the camp centre, separate paths lead off to each treehouse. They are deliberately arranged so that no two are in sight of one another, and so that no path to one takes you past another.
The Woodsman’s
The longest approach of the three, along a raised boardwalk and across a rope bridge into an ancient oak.
Dazzle
Follow the path towards the stream. Dazzle is built over it, and you board by gangplank.
Pinwheel
The path climbs slightly into the oldest part of the wood — the bluebell ground — and ends in a ring of mature oaks.
Walking the woods
The whole thirteen acres is yours to walk. Paths are kept clear and signposted, and a slow circuit takes about half an hour. Beyond the boundary the land is working dairy pasture, so please keep to the woodland side of the fences.
Forde Abbey is roughly three miles on foot from the top gate if you want a longer walk with a tea room at the end of it.
Motion-sensor lighting covers the main paths and runs right to each front door. A torch is still worth having if you plan to wander off the spine.
Getting here
The address, the sat-nav warning and the taxi numbers worth pre-booking.