3 Best Sights in Sherborne, The South

After building this castle in 1594, Sir Walter Raleigh made it his home for 10 years before it passed into the custodianship of the Digby family. The castle's interiors cover a variety of periods, including Tudor, Jacobean, and Georgian. The Victorian Gothic rooms are notable for their splendid plaster ceiling moldings. After admiring the extensive collections of Meissen and Asian porcelain, stroll around the lake and 45 acres of landscaped grounds (a designated English Heritage Grade I site), the work of Capability Brown. The house is less than a mile southeast of town.

This small market town, the model for "Shaston" in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, sits on a ridge overlooking Blackmore Vale—you can catch a sweeping view of the surrounding countryside from the top of Gold Hill, a steep street lined with cottages so picturesque it was used in an iconic TV commercial to evoke the quintessential British village of yore. Shaftesbury is 20 miles west of Salisbury and 15 miles east of Sherborne.

As much as the golden hamstone exterior, majestic tower, and fine flying buttresses impress, the glory of Sherborne Abbey is the delicate 15th-century fan vaulting that extends the length of the soaring nave and choir. Some features from the original 8th-century cathedral, like a Saxon doorway in the northwest corner, still remain. If you're lucky, you might hear "Great Tom," one of the heaviest bells in the world, pealing out from the bell tower. Guided tours are offered from April through September on Saturday (10:30 am) and Sunday (11:15 am), plus Tuesday (10:30 am) and Friday (2 pm) through November. Tours from December through March need to be made by prior arrangement.