Adults-only touring park in Dorset wins top conservation award
What happens when you give up a successful photographic business in London, move to Dorset and take on a caravan park? Chances are you’d have a good old time with your fellow caravanners, but would you win the country’s top conservation award for caravan and holiday parks? The odds are slim, unless of course you’re Martin and Vicky Bowrey, who won the Gold David Bellamy Conservation Award for their caravan park, Back of Beyond, less than a year after its opening.
The pair gave up their business in London’s West End in February 2014 to establish the Back of Beyond adults-only touring caravan park, which is nestled among acres of greenery and even the occasional deer in St Leonards, near Ringwood in the New Forest. The park covers over 30 acres of countryside, half of which is woodland, and includes 80 pitches for camping, touring caravans and motorhomes.
If that isn’t green enough for the tree hugger in you, Back of Beyond sits right next to the popular Lions Hill Nature Reserve, and an area of the park has already been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Park guests also have access to the River Moors, which runs through the park and features two fishing lakes, not to mention a whole host of aquatic wildlife. To top it all off, multiple species of dragonflies and birds can be spotted flitting through the park, thanks to Martin and Vicky’s initiatives.
The Back of Beyond caravan park also places importance on locally sourced materials and food, and has incorporated Dorset shingle in its pathways, as well as native trees and shrubs in and around the park. Martin and Vicky are also big on recycling, having placed habitat timber piles around the grounds and bird boxes.
The couple were very pleased having received the award, with Martin commenting: “Feedback from guests so far has been tremendous, and it’s given us a real boost to know that we also have the support of someone like David Bellamy behind us.”
He added: “We enjoyed running our London business for over twenty years, but always dreamed of living in this beautiful area of Dorset, and creating a park which offered a complete rural escape.”
We here at CaravanTimes think Martin and Vicky truly deserve their award, and wish them the best of luck with their new caravan park.
