At Rural View our local knowledge is unrivalled and we’d like to share some of our top recommendations with you for the very best in this part of the world.  From the rolling hills of Melbury Abbas to the shops of Shaftesbury, we convey our passion for the breadth and beauty of this area to every aspect of the work we do:

Best place to watch the sunset

In high summer stand at the top of Win Green to enjoy breath-taking panoramic views of rolling downland.

Best view

We love a winter walk at Fontmell and Melbury Downs. Its magnificent landscape is mentioned in Thomas Hardy’s novels.

Best walk

We love the walk from Ansty to Tollard Royal. Footpaths the whole route (9 miles) with not a single road, ending with a pint at the King John Inn, on the border of Wiltshire and Dorset.

Best place to buy for a picnic

Compton McRae is a top-notch food emporium in the pretty village of Semley.

Best bakery

Reeve the Baker, local bakery with outlets in Shaftesbury, Wilton and Salisbury. They do a great sourdough loaf.

Best florists

Flowers & Twine in Tisbury and Pamplemousse in Shaftesbury, both have wonderful flowers.

Best place for inspiration for your interiors

Compton Smith in Shaftesbury founded by Martin and Carina Syms, a one-stop shop for specialist paint, wallpaper or a total redesign of your home.

Most beautiful building

The Arch at Fonthill is a truly iconic building, an architectural gem.

Best live music venue

The End of the Road, great festival held at Larmer Tree Gardens.

Best cinemas

Everyman in Salisbury, watch movies in luxurious comfort.

Best Theatres

Theatre Royal Bath and The Salisbury Playhouse.

Best places to drink and eat

We have many pubs in the area, full of character and offering great food. To name a few; Beckford Arms, Fonthill Gifford, Royal Oak, Swallowcliffe, Grosvenor Arms, Hindon and The Compasses in Chicksgrove. In the next few months, we eagerly await the opening of the new boutique hotel Teffont House.

Best places to meet for coffee

Pamplemousse, Shaftesbury. The Grosvenor Arms, Shaftesbury. The Stalls, Sutton Mandeville. Compton McRae, Semley

Best places to amuse kids on a rainy day

Bowling at Strikers in Salisbury or the recently refurbished Salisbury Museum.

Best Spa

Bramley the beauty brand has opened a spa cabin in a shepherd’s hut in the grounds of the Bath Arms, Horningsham.

Best place to see international art

We’re spoilt for choice for world-class art venues.  Messums West is an art destination in a 13^th century tithe barn in Tisbury. Down the road is Hauser and Worth in Bruton.

Best street food

Big Bang Pizza, a local company run a pop-up pizza shack at Ansty Pick Your Own and Farm shop.

Best place to learn something new

Chalke History Festival, for a week in June, set in the beautiful landscape of Broadchalke.

Best secret beach

Ringstead Bay is a firm favourite. It feels remote and rarely crowded.

Best spot for fishing

A lovely tranquil place to enjoy trout fishing on the River Nadder at Compton Chamberlayne (book through the estate office)

We are finding that some buyers are increasingly being drawn to modern or new homes with excellent Eco credentials.  Technological advances in this field have moved fast and this could be in the form of many things such as air source heat pumps, ground source, heat recovery systems, solar power with battery storage and bio-mass systems amongst others.

Whilst in some cases grants have been obtainable for the owners to improve their homes, the costs can be high, but they see it as future proofing their property and this has been a growing trend. We currently have a new build country house for sale, recently featured in the Sunday Times which is completely off grid. This relies on a bank of solar panels and battery storage to feed the air source heat pump to under floor hearting. If the solar array isn’t producing enough power then a diesel generator kicks, which spread across the calendar year is a relatively low figure considering the size of house.

We are about to market another new build country house which is has been built as a passive design.  With some owners wanting the flexibility to lock up and go, the ease of a new build with low maintenance and excellent eco credentials is certainly attractive.

Low EPC’s, low running costs and green energy are moving into rural property swiftly. That said, there will always be buyers who have a preference for a beautifully restored Old Rectory or a chocolate box cottage and those in good condition are much easier to sell. We see the allure of village and rural modern houses in both contemporary and traditional designs continuing to grow with demand exceeding supply.

CS – January 26

The traditional winter slowdown in the local property market started much earlier and more deeply than usual this year. This was as a direct result of speculation since the summer that the Government were going to introduce a raft of measures in the autumn budget that might affect the housing sector. These included an overhaul of the Stamp Duty system, a raid on savers’ pension pots, changes to Capital Gains Tax relief on the sale of main homes, the introduction of a Mansion Tax amongst several other possibilities.

The rumours had a marked impact on the market with a sizable number of sellers and buyers putting their moving plans on hold whilst others made a concerted effort to secure a sale/purchase ahead of the budget. This led to Rural View agreeing a good tranche of sales in September and early October but otherwise activity levels tailed off sharply in the weeks leading up to the chancellor’s autumn statement at the end of November.

Apart from an annual surcharge being levied on homes valued over two million pounds from 2028 and a 2% rise in property income tax, the budget was something of a non-event as far as property is concerned. However, all the speculation leading up to it over several months eroded market confidence leading to weaker demand and prices. Its late timing meant that effectively the property year was already over for new business by the time it came around albeit we remained busy managing the sales we arranged earlier in the autumn to successful conclusions.

Home movers in 2025 could have done without the long build-up to the budget and the associated rumour mill as the year had already got off to a challenging start following the global consternation caused by President Trump’s erratic tariff announcements. Despite the ramifications these had on stock markets and investor confidence, Rural View agreed a good level of sales throughout the year.

Over the late spring/early summer period we were delighted to have been favoured as the chosen agents for a sizable number of sellers with many of these instructions coming as a result of personal recommendations. This led to us having our largest ever register of homes to sell and under offer.

Looking forward to 2026, the thinking is that we will see a return to normality in the housing sector over the coming year and we are quietly optimistic that trading conditions will improve and get back on track again in the spring, possibly earlier. A period of political and economic stability both in the UK and globally would certainly be most welcome!

Mark Matthews, Rural View Dec 2025

At Rural View we are passionate about being involved in the local community, whether it be through sponsorship, donation or active participation. Over the years Rural View has contributed the equivalent of thousands of pounds to community and charity causes, and this summer we have once again been active, with the fine weather drawing large attendances to a variety of events.

Main sponsorships this year, as in past years, have included the wonderful Chalke History Festival, the splendid Fonthill Dog Show and bucolic Teffont Show, packed with entrants and visitors, and summing up what country life is all about in quite gorgeous settings.

In between times we supplied advertising boards for the Chilmark Fete, supported the East Knoyle Flower Show and we were delighted to help again with the Semley Summer Music Festival, itself a charitable event.

At the Chalke History Festival we sponsored a talk by Kevin McCloud, which was very well attended, and the Rural View buggies were again evident, charging around the festival grounds all week.

Across the whole county, meanwhile, we could be widely spotted as sponsors of the Wiltshire National Garden Scheme on the front of their vibrant yellow booklets. This is our third year and we were delighted to again see a cluster of local gardens being opened to the public. Among many, these included Fonthill House, Knoyle Place and Semley Grange. This fantastic charity is UK wide, and to be involved locally is very close to our heart.

We have a budget and can’t support everything, but if you have an event in mind that might benefit from our help, do ask.

The inclement weather in the first half of 2024 was a major delaying factor in the spring market taking off, and it was not until late April that we really saw significant activity, with properties coming to the open market and good viewing numbers. Buyers were readily competing for the best houses  and we agreed numerous deals over a frenetic period before the country went to the polls.

With the likely outcome of the election written in the wind, this activity continued for a while, but it was the end of the summer holidays that signalled a change in the mainstream market. By this stage, we had the new Labour government in place and everyone was trying to understand what changes might be implemented and how these could generally impact the property market. Unfortunately, comments in the press about the “painful budget” that was to be delivered in late October meant that many buyers and sellers decided to sit on the sidelines well in advance. Autumn was therefore quieter than we had hoped, but we still continued to agree plenty of sales.

When it eventually came, the budget delivered an immediate increase in second home stamp duty from 3 – 5%. We have found that since the post-covid boom, second home buying has been subdued anyway, and time will tell whether such a move will dramatically affect our local market. There is also going to be the dropping of the stamp duty relief for first time buyers and a general lowering of the threshold, which is likely to cause a flurry of activity at the bottom end to beat the 1 April deadline.

We hope for healthy levels of demand from good quality buyers in 2025. The outlook for the market and pricing will ultimately depend on how the economy performs and what happens to interest / borrowing rates, but we are looking forward to a better air of confidence to prevail rather than uncertainty, and expect the market and availability of stock to gather momentum throughout the year.