Squirrel Cottage

Squirrel Cottage is a detached lodge on the Bargaly Estate, a 350-year-old property in Dumfries and Galloway known for red squirrel sightings. Everything is on the ground floor: two bedrooms (one double, one with two singles and a z-bed), a bathroom with bath and shower, and a kitchen-dining room that opens to a living area. Both the kitchen and sitting room have woodburners, and there's a utility room with dishwasher and washing machine. Electricity, bed linen and towels are included, as are initial logs for the fires.

The one-acre garden has furniture and a barbecue, and you get private parking for two or three cars. One pet stays free. A small burn runs through the wider grounds (fenced and gated, not in your immediate garden) and the property draws water from a spring on the estate. Newton Stewart is five miles away for shops, pubs and restaurants. The estate manages salmon and trout fishing on its five-and-a-half-mile stretch of the Palnure Burn, available by separate arrangement. No smoking inside.