La Fosse derives its name from the surname of the previous owners who started the restaurant over 20 years ago and moved to Dorset from Hertfordshire. The name is also well known for the Fosse Way, the only Roman road in Britain to retain its original Latin name, which is apt due to the many local Roman sites. The back part of the building originates from an old farmhouse and stable block that dates back reportedly to the time of King John when he stayed at the Manor whilst some of his entourage stayed at the farmstead. It is said that it has also been a coaching inn from the 1600s. The brick and slate frontage of London House is Victorian, and until the 1980s had traditional shop fronts. The building in the last 40 years has held a haberdashers and a tea room prior to being renovated into a restaurant with rooms.

Cranborne Chase is a Chalk plateau in central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The plateau is part of the English Chalk Formation and is adjacent to Salisbury Plain and the West Wiltshire Downs in the north, the Dorset Downs to the south west and the South Downs running south east.

981 square kilometres (379 mile²) of Cranborne Chase and the West Wiltshire Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty(AONB), the sixth largest AONB in the country. The highest point is Win Green, in Wiltshire, at 910 ft (277 m).

The downland has a long history with many earthworks and archaeology from the Neolithic age onwards .Much of the area therefore remained wooded from the Middle Ages until World War II. There are many Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments and the remains of a number of Iron Age settlements on the downs, most notably the hill fort at Badbury Rings. There is a Roman villa (see below) which has been dug by Time Team. During the Saxon invasion of England the Romano-British kept the invaders out of Dorset by building Bokerley Dyke and Ackling Dyke, a defensive ditch, across the Roman Road that runs across the downs from Dorchester to Old Sarum. The downs are named after the village Cranborne, founded by the Saxons, which had a manor house and a small monastery. The word "chase" comes from the hunts, frequented by royalty. It was here that Augustus Pitt Rivers developed modern archaeological field work in the 19th century.

Rockbourne Roman Villa is near Fordingbridge in a picturesque and peaceful part of Hampshire close to the New Forest. The Roman villa once stood in the centre of a large farming estate, and is the largest known villa in the area. Its history spans the period from the Iron Age to the 5th century AD. www3.hants.gov.uk/rockbourne-roman-villa