For one night stay en-route, in a couple of months time.
Somewhere with a nice restaurant, reasonable rooms and ideally somewhere for a pleasant promenade after dinner.
Good car parking too!
Any suggestions gratefully received.

Depends what you are after, but take a look at the Bath House Hotel in Chard. It looks odd from the road as it’s above a Chinese restaurant, but the rooms are good as is the food. Parking too. Check out the review on TripAdvisor.

Chard? Hahahahahahhaha. That is all!

The Casterbridge in Dorchester may be a Best Western but has an excellent head chef.
The Eastbury in Sherborne is excellent all-round & the town is definitely worth a wander around although it’s not en-route so much.
Bridport is fairly lively for a mooch & a pint.

Bull in Bridport.

Coombe House Hotel at Gittisham.

Thanks all, will take stock and see what we fancy.

You could always do Weymouth as well. There’s a good bike shop there that do Thursday night MTB & Tuesday road shop rides if feeling up for it.

Gidleigh Park, Chagford is alright

Bull in bridport.

Alexandra in lyme Regis is very nice. Also mark hix restaurant there.

A good pub nr Exeter with very good food and about 300 whiskeys is the nobody inn. 5 mins from haldon.

As above depends where you want to break the trip. Weymouth isn’t bad, pretty little harbour with painted houses (avert your gaze if the hi speed ferry is in) some nice fish restaurants (need to make a reservation), decent beach for a stroll, my pick though would be Lyme Regis.