The Trooper Inn

The Trooper Inn is a 17th century village pub at Stourton Caundle in the Blackmore Vale with a small camping and caravan site in a level field behind it. The pub calls it the CS hideaway: it is a Camping and Caravanning Club certificated site, so it is small, quiet and aimed at self contained tents, caravans and motorhomes rather than big groups. Stourton Caundle sits off the A357 between Sturminster Newton and Stalbridge, with Sherborne and its abbey and castles about 5 miles north west and the Jurassic Coast under an hour's drive south. The North Dorset Trailway, 14 miles of off road walking and cycling on an old railway line, starts at nearby Sturminster Newton. What lifts The Trooper Inn above a plain field is the walk to the bar, because this is a CAMRA award winning independent pub with changing real ales, West Country ciders and homemade food, and dogs, walkers and cyclists are welcome. Anyone wanting hardstandings, a shop or a play area should look elsewhere. The camping season runs from around 1 April to 30 September and pitches start at £12 a night for a unit and two people, with electric hook up at £3 and dogs at 50p, and the pub also runs a bunkhouse all year from £150 a night for 10 people.