Tom's Field

A Change of Owners It was a daunting prospect to take on this well loved place. To retain the character, charm, customers. Part of the charm for people lay in the neglect and quant old-fashioned air added to by the rat chewed electrical cables in the shop .  We set about this, as sensitively as possible, aware that there could be resentment to fundamental change and, after all, why did they love it so much. We knew that Tom was well loved by many people as a unique, unrepeatable person. We also knew that he had found it increasingly hard to manage on his own which is he had done for the last few years So we attempted to make change slowly and preserve those things that have added to the magical qualities of the place. Because it was impossible, financially, to knock down the existing toilet block we set about reconstructing from the inside, thus there has been an organic growth rather than a fundamental change. This was not easy as so much was so badly neglected and run down, w

Tom obtained   a few suitable frame tents, four to six person size. To make them comfortable he laid down some wooden floor boards   made of demolition floor boards and The New Shop, 1974 sheets of ply these were then covered in groundsheets that were tacked down. The tents were duly erected. At this time Caramarine supplied equipment to fit out holiday caravans   and supplied Tom with camping goods . Tom asked Graham, the owner of Caramarine to supply interior furnishings. Each tent was supplied with a camp kitchen, table, two burner and grill cooker, gaz bottle, cutlery, plastic Twinco plates,bowls and mugs, pots and frying pan, bucket, bowl and cooking utensils etc. Tom was then ready to commence operations as a ‘rentatent’ operator. Tom did not spend much on advertising this venture, indeed he   always advised us only to   use the free entries in the camping literature, but to start with it met with a degree of modest success. However it soon became apparent to Tom that

Tom’s Field is a little over 4.5 acres and was used for stone quarrying having heads for three underground workings. When underground working became less attractive the land became used as a smallholding for cattle, chicken and pigs. The whole of Tom’s Field Road once belonged to the Bower family but was gradually sold off as building plots. Toms Field was first used for casual camping in the late 1950s at that time part of the land was still used as a small holding. Tom and his father developed the site and had some interesting and innovative ideas. There was Tom’s venture into pre- erected tents. This took place in  the mid seventies.  The concept of  tent camping as an inexpensive family holiday was facing increasing competition from caravans both static and touring. The cheap package holiday in Spain was enjoying a massive boom with the advent of Laker Airways and other such all  inclusive operators. In France there were large camps that operated tents for camping holidays with

Titus Bower Tom’s Field Campsite Tom Bower  So how did Tom’s Field develop as a campsite-? Well the history of how this piece of land first came into the hands of the Bower family is contained in the following information from Reg Saville of Langton Matravers ‘For many hundreds of years the principal occupation of England was subsistence farming. During the early Saxon period (c650 AD) the land was divided into strips of equal length and width, called 'hydes' or 'hides', and each family was given one strip, on which they had to live, cultivate crops and pasture their animals. Many of the straight stone wall boundaries stretching southwards from Langton village street to the cliffs date from this period. During the late Saxon and early Norman periods those who had served the king loyally in war or peace were given several of these hydes, creating small manors. As time went on, these families, which had become rich and famous, purchased more lands, thus cre