The Arch at the Beckford Arms I could live here forever…

Fiona Duncan feels at home in the Grade I-listed arch now being offered as ‘diminutive’ accommodation

I have always enjoyed hunkering down in confined spaces. For nearly three years I lived on a boat and, a few winters ago, my family and I were for three days contentedly snowed in at a tiny but divine wooden hut in the Alps. I am equally happy in tents, camper vans, windmills (Cley Windmill in Norfolk to be specific), towers, treehouses and troglodyte caves. I wouldn’t go quite as far as my cousin, who lived happily for much of her childhood in an adapted cardboard box that had contained a washing machine, but I totally got the point.

Cue the announcement from the admirable Beckford Arms near Tisbury that an arch had been added to its range of accommodation. As well as eight pretty bedrooms at the inn and two lodges in the parkland surrounding it, you can now stay in the great Grade I-listed Fonthill Arch that was built in 1755 to act as a grand arrival and gatehouse to the Fonthill Estate.

I could not wait. In the past I had driven through that splendid stone monument (the road is a minor one that leads into the lovely estate and past a snakelike lake to the Beckford Arms), never realising that it housed two tiny dwellings. On one side of the arch lives a gentleman who has created a lovely garden. The other side was, until recently, occupied by an estate worker. It is this half that the proprietors of the Beckford – Charlie Luxton and Dan Brod – have, in partnership with the owner of Fonthill Estate, Lord Margadale, fashioned into my ideal home.

It comprises a diminutive but perfect kitchen/dining room, sitting room, boot room and walk-in larder, plus a shower room, a main bedroom with a king-size bed and freestanding bath, and a miniature top bedroom – located up a spiral staircase – with bunk beds large enough for adults. I could happily live in the small but perfectly formed Arch forever. The tiny house has been beautifully realised and makes a quirky and romantic place to stay in a quirky and romantic corner of Wiltshire – for just a night, a weekend or longer. And the price is reasonable given the quality, the facilities, the idiosyncrasy and the charm.

The Fonthill Estate has had a chequered history, with grand houses (one called Splendens) that appeared and disappeared with alarming rapidity. The estate’s most famous owner was the eccentric William Beckford, who built the gothic revival Fonthill Abbey, known as Beckford’s Folly, and filled it with an astonishing collection of furniture and antiquities. Designed by James Wyatt, the “vast heap of wild gothic imagery” included a 276ft-tall tower which collapsed in a cloud of masonry not long after it was built.

It was in fact Beckford’s father who built the Arch. It takes 20 minutes or so to walk from there to the Beckford Arms, through woodland, across meadows and past the cricket pitch (or you can, of course, drive if you prefer). A booklet describes other local walks.

The Arch is the perfect base for ramblers, with a log fire as well as a grandfather clock and a barometer, plus gleaming silver, cut glass, linen napkins and the prettiest of vintage plates and tea cups. The owners have scoured local antique shops, but they have also mixed in the new: contemporary abstract paintings; music on tap via Alexa and a Marshall bluetooth speaker. There is also a big television cleverly hidden behind a folding cupboard.

William Morris fabric has been teamed with florals and stripes from

Buchanan Studio, Colefax & Fowler, GP&J Baker and Chelsea Textiles, while the varied, subtle paintwork was chosen from Farrow & Ball’s latest range by the company’s brand ambassador and colour consultant Patrick O’Donnell.

A splendid antique silver tantalus containing complimentary decanters of whisky, port and brandy is a welcome addition, as is the hamper packed with everything you could possibly want for a proper hearty English breakfast in the well-equipped kitchen the next morning.

I can’t help feeling that if the Beckfords, father and son, could see inside their Arch today, they would, like me, want to move in too. Its sense of permanence is palpable: unlike their other buildings, it will never – one feels sure – fall down.

Doubles from £295 per night, including breakfast