The Blue Pool

The Blue Pool is a well-known but low-key and rather lovely tourist attraction in Dorset. People have been coming here since 1935 to visit the tea rooms and walk woodland paths around the pool’s impossibly turquoise waters. The important difference is that, these days, you don’t have to go home. A pair of treehouses built in and around the pine trees on the water’s edge now offer rustic accommodation at this truly special site. Once the day visitors have left, overnight glampers get the whole place—all 20 acres—to themselves.

There’s no better time to spot the resident wildlife than when everyone else has gone home. You’re almost guaranteed to see sika deer and squirrels and, if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of a peregrine falcon or hear the haunting sound of a nightjar. The treehouses are named after these two birds: Choose Peregrine to sleep up to four, Nightjar if you’re coming with a significant other. Both were handcrafted using timber sourced within the estate and are completely unique. Each has its own private facilities; at Peregrine there’s a toilet at the living space level and a kitchen corner with kettle and sink inside. A refreshing open-air shower is underneath the cabin. Over at Nightjar the facilities are grounded and a short walk away from the treehouse, which is really a bedroom at canopy level with a living tree trunk right through the middle. For both, you must bring your own bedding.

Both treehouses have decks outside, so you can enjoy your lofty viewpoint, and both have a firepit area and seating too. The treehouses, the nearby summer-only camping site, and The Blue Pool itself are all part of the Furzebrook Estate. It’s privately owned and located on the Isle of Purbeck, a couple of miles from Corfe Castle and not more than 20 minutes from most of the places you’ll want to visit: Studland Bay, Swanage, Kimmeridge Bay, Lulworth Cove, and Durdle Door.