Sherborne is one of the nicest places go shopping, having many individual and unique family-run shops. These include Parsons, a good old-fashioned butcher that has been serving Sherborne for decades, antique shops, a music shop, designer clothes shops, several coffee shops and tea rooms and delicatessens and many well-stocked charity shops.

Cheap Street is the main high street that leads to Sherborne Abbey. The street is short and there are a few bigger chains, including Fat Face, Phase 8 and New Look, but the independent retailers remain good places to try when shopping for gifts.

Sherborne has many places to visit if you re shopping for antiques, for yourself or as gifts. Acreman Street Antique centre is a clean and tidy space offering lots of different styles and genres from individual traders plus a small café is attached. Charterhouse Auctioneers & Valuers holds regular monthly auctions of antiques, including furniture, ceramics and glass. They also hold special sales of collectors’ items. Henry Willis are another dealer in antiques, with early silver spoons before 1700 being of particular interest.

Melbury Gallery stocks clothes, accessories, gifts, stationary and cards as well as soft furnishings and lighting for the home. They also have a great range of jewellery. Butterfly Bright has a wide selection of beautiful fabrics and yarns as well as gifts and cards and runs an extensive range of craft workshops.

Book-lovers pay a visit to Winstone’s book-shop, twice awarded South West Independent Bookseller of the Year.

The Toy Barn sells good quality toys in a deceptively large series of showrooms. Children will love this place as it stocks lots of toys from Lego to board games, outdoor kit and various climbing frames. Here, shopping for children’s gifts easy. The shop also offers go-karting in the barn and farmyard where children can race around a track for half-an-hour.

The Swan Gallery has a diverse diverse stock of prints, maps, watercolours and oil paintings attracting collectors from all over the world. Global Images Gallery has wonderful photographs of anything from the Himalayas to photographs from the late Leonard Cohen’s world tour.

Orvis stocks a wide range of clothes for men and women, including clothes for those interested in country sports. They also stock luxury dog products, but their speciality is an extensive fly-fishing department that also offers short store-based courses, including how to tie flies as well as organising fly-fishing trips.