Family owned and run since 1978

In December 1977 Freda and Norman Wellard moved with their family from a modern, comfortable home in a local village to a run down camping site in the middle of a forest.  The winter of 1977/1978 was severe with record levels of snow falling.

When we opened for our first season in 1978 we offered the following:
13 holiday caravans – but not many with toilets or bathrooms
Grass camping fields and very basic facilities – flush toilets but no hot water for washing or showers
Laundry facilities in a shed
An outdoor pool
And a TV chalet!

An outdoor swimming pool with slide, a TV room on stilts and some homemade play equipment.  A laundry room in a shed, block built toilets with a very basic shower and no hot water.

We’ve come a long way since then – a covered heating swimming pool with modern changing rooms, TVs in every holiday caravan (and free Wi-Fi because who watches TV now anyway), two play areas and a clean, well-equipped amenities building with free hot showers.

We bought the park with 13 holiday caravans – a random mix ranging from 8 feet to 9.5 feet wide and up to 30 feet long.  As a guide our modern holiday caravans are all 12 feet wide and up to 35 feet in length.

In those days caravans didn’t always have bathrooms, although several had flush toilets and one even had a bath.

In the early eighties a road and parking bays were added around the outside of the caravan field and we gradually replaced the original caravans with modern ones, all with shower rooms with toilets.

Originally licensed only for tents, both main fields were used for camping and then the Five Acre Field was used for scouts, guides and rallies.  We used to let out the fields to a local farmer in the closed season for grazing for sheep.

Hedges were added to the camping field so that now each pitch has a hedge behind it.  Then roads and hard standing pitches were added.

A week in a 6 berth holiday caravan with toilet in August – £52.00
Camping charges – 81p per adult per day and 43p per child per day.  At these prices a week’s camping for a family of four and the dog cost £18.50.

Our much-loved Christmas Tree Field was just that, a plantation of Christmas trees owned and managed by a local farmer.  When he retired we bought the land and turned it into a camping field.  All the trees in that area are just big Christmas Trees.

This field remains relatively unchanged.  Once used for scout and guide camps and rallies this is now a great field for ‘proper camping’ – no electric hook-ups, lots of space and clear night skies for star-gazing.