Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, and a couple of Hughs (Laurie and Grant) stayed here in 1995 while filming at a nearby stately house. So I reckoned if Summer Lodge was good enough for the entire cast of Sense and Sensibility, it should definitely suit me.

What I didn't realise was, just how much it would suit me, and that I would fall entirely for this low-key yet upscale country house set in an equally enchanting storybook English village.

But let's look at Evershot first. We wandered through the hamlet one morning during our stay. It doesn't take long. There are only a couple of streets, a handful of houses and a pub, the stone church surrounded by lichened gravestones, and a shop or two. It's in West Dorset, nine miles from Dorchester (population 20,000) which has been a bustling trade centre for centuries - but it might as well be in another land.

Evershot's main street is filled with thatched cottages, many with their front doors and windows right at the footpath. Now, I ask you, how can you not snoop (just a little) when there are the porcelain collectables displayed on the window ledges, framed by crisp white lace curtains? I would have loved to go inside, but all is snoozy quiet in the late morning sunshine and there's no one to ask.

At the corner, there's the Acorn Inn which prides itself on using produce from within a 25-mile radius we discover that evening, a bakery, and somewhere else a notice announces that the fish van calls at various points around lunchtime on Tuesdays. Worth remembering 

When we dine, we meet a different crowd and menu. Dishes such as calves liver and bacon, soup of the day, and risotto spell out pub food that's trending towards gastro-pub. It's good food, and the service is friendly and relaxed, although we got a laugh when a waiter solemnly informs a diner "I'm sorry, sir, we are out of plaice."

Appropriately, we visit Summer Lodge in mid-summer, so ignoring the croquet pitch and the pool, the next day we opt to take another stroll in the lanes behind the lodge. Here eye-high hedges shield lush meadows where cattle, plump from the excess of pasture, gaze at us without interest. They chew slowly, untidily, with their minds obviously focused on somewhere the grass is even greener. As if! 

The hedges are laced with nettles and blackberries and wildflowers. The odd starling flips past and we hear the who-who-hoo of a turtledove as a gentle breeze shares the scents of nearby gardens. After a week in London, it's pure, decadent, country bliss.

But don't be tricked by these bucolic surroundings.

Summer Lodge is a Red Carnation property, affiliated with Relais & Chateaux. It's a country house with plumped cushions in the parlour, cream teas in the drawing room, local produce for the restaurant, and the sort of deferential discreet service you dream of. It would fit well in Champagne or Burgundy. It's elegant, but not too grand. Exactly right for its location.

A Georgian listed house, built in 1798, it is set upon four acres adjoining a vast deer park. Various renovations and additions has brought it to its present status: 20 guest rooms and four suites, fitted out with comfort and relaxation as the prime requisite. 

Centre-stage in our room's bathroom is a free-standing claw-foot bath. There are fresh flowers on the table, summer fruit in a bowl, original paintings on the wall. We could stay here all day but instead we breakfast in the Conservatory, basking in the mild sunshine.

A selection from the buffet table: Normandie yoghurt, tea-soaked prunes and Dorset cereal (fifty percent fruit and nuts, the label proudly proclaims) and a baguette from the excellent Evershot Bakery, readies us for another day exploring the area.

Dorset is Thomas Hardy country. Born in East Dorset he attended high school at Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, then trained as an architect. His skills with building restoration can be traced in many parts of Britain as can the sometimes vaguely concealed places on which he based various settings for his books. It is said he had a hand in some of the early redesign of Summer Lodge.

Hardy called Evershot's pub The Sow and Acorn in Tess of the D'Urbervilles. He indulged his nostalgia for Dorset in many other works and locals who know the area well have fun deducing which places he has honoured in this way. 

You'd be selling Dorset short, though, if you didn't acknowledge that the postcard villages are only one side of it. Beaches and chalk cliffs are part of the attraction of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, the name itself hinting at the fossils discovered there.

Over many centuries Dorset has accumulated prehistoric earthworks: Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds, and Iron Age hill forts. Remnants of Roman and Saxon communities have also been unearthed. The area has been connected with the Black Death, the English Civil War, early Trade Union events, and D-Day.

In fact, history alone could keep most visitors busy in this county for weeks, yet many come to do exactly what we did - relax and revive in a quietly breathtaking corner of England. 

And here's an interesting thing which I discovered. Although Hardy's ashes were requisitioned for Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner, his heart is buried in the graveyard at Stinsford parish church, just a mile from Dorchester. 

I can understand that. After all, I think I left my heart in Dorset too.