Campsite Development


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 the operation required a lot more attention than he could manage in the busy season and to capit all he was loosing quite a lot of  equipment  from the tents when they were not occupied. Other campers would enter the tents under the cover of darkness and remove valuable items such as cookers, beds and other bits and pieces to the extent that Tom decided to call it a day and he sold off most, if not all of the equipment.

In 1965 a small timber building was extended for use as a campsite shop, in 1974 planning permission was obtained to build a new shop where the present shop is located.
In 1968 a toilet block was built next to the Nissen hut and about 5 years later this was extended. Tom and his dad, Titus, used to sell milk from Talbot Cottage, still to be seen in Langton Matravers just passed the end of Tom's Field Road.
Tom, who was born in 1931, died in the summer of 2005. He is buried in the cemetery down Crack Lane in Langtom Matravers.




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