Dorset House — Privacy Policy
Dorset House ("we", "us", "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and how it's handled when you enquire, book a stay, or purchase a gift voucher with us.
Who We Are
Dorset House, Pound Road, Lyme Regis, Dorset, DT7 3HX. Contact: info@dorsethouselyme.com
What Information We Collect
When you make an enquiry or booking, we collect:
- Name, email address, phone number, postal address
- Stay dates, room preference, and number of guests
- Dietary requirements, allergies, and any accessibility needs you tell us about
- Details about any dog travelling with you
- Booking and payment records (see Payment Processing below)
If you purchase a gift voucher, we collect the purchaser's and (where different) recipient's name and contact details.
If you contact us directly, we keep a record of that correspondence.
Payment Processing
We do not store or hold your card details ourselves.
- Room bookings are paid via a secure payment link provided by Tide. Tide processes your payment directly; we receive confirmation that payment was made but do not see or retain your full card number.
- Gift vouchers are processed via Square. Square handles the payment directly under its own privacy and security terms.
We recommend reviewing Tide's privacy policy and Square's privacy policy for details of how they handle payment data.
How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Process and manage your booking or voucher purchase
- Communicate with you before, during, and after your stay
- Prepare for your visit (e.g. dietary needs, dog arrangements)
- Meet our legal and accounting obligations
- Send you occasional email updates, if you've opted in (see Marketing Emails below)
Our legal basis for most of this is that it's necessary to perform our contract with you (your booking) or to take steps at your request before entering into one. Where we hold information for legal/accounting purposes, our basis is legal obligation. Marketing emails are sent only with your consent.
Marketing Emails
If you opt in, we use Mailerlite to send booking-related and marketing emails. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email we send, or by contacting us directly.
Website & Cookies
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to help ensure the website functions correctly, understand how visitors use our website, and improve the experience we provide. We may update this Cookies section from time to time to reflect changes to the cookies and technologies we use.
Who We Share Your Information With
We share information only where necessary:
- Tide and Square — to process payments
- Mailerlite — to send email communications you've opted into
- Webflow — to host our website and any forms submitted through it
- Our accountant — for bookkeeping and tax purposes
- Where required by law (e.g. HMRC, or in response to a legal request)
We do not sell your personal data to third parties.
How Long We Keep Your Information
We keep booking and payment records for as long as required for accounting and tax purposes (currently six years), and enquiry/correspondence records for as long as reasonably needed to respond to you or for a limited period afterwards, whichever is shorter. Marketing email data is kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it.
Your Rights
Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Ask us to correct inaccurate data
- Ask us to delete your data, where applicable
- Object to or restrict certain processing
- Withdraw consent for marketing at any time
- Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we've mishandled your data (ico.org.uk)
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at info@dorsethouselyme.com.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be available on our website.
Last updated: September 2026
