Park history - Monkton Wyld Holiday Park, Dorset

First opened in 1991, Monkton Wyld Holiday Park has flourished from a small four-acre field into a beautifully-landscaped park.

Monkton Wyld Caravan Park started in a small four-acre field and first welcomed visitors in 1991. In those early days the owners were still actively farming sheep and cattle together with about 80 acres of cereals.

Current owner Joanna's connection to the farm goes back to 1959 when her parents paid £6,000 for a large farmhouse and 130 acres of land with associated old-fashioned buildings. Joanna’s parents cleared the land which had recently been somewhat neglected and milked nearly 100 cows. Upon their retirement in 1986, Simon and Joanna sold their business and were able to buy a proportion of the property and rent the rest from them.

Mick and Pam Bailey from Kent used to park their caravan in a field in Joanna’s father’s days. Mick and Pam suggested that the small field should be turned into a little campsite. In those early days Simon and Joanna really had no idea about caravanning but just thought they would create a space in which they would like to camp.

With the aid of a farm diversification grant of £25,000 they were able to build the very small, now redundant, brick shower block and borrow the money for all the rest. In those early days they simply walked around every evening to see who had turned up. There were no hook-ups as they did not know they existed or were required, and they forgot to build a dishwashing area.

Things moved slowly forward and after a couple of years Mick wrote to say he was taking retirement and rather thought he and Pam could help by looking after the park during the summer. Then with their unstinting efforts Joanna and her family slowly built up the business and actually began to understand what they were doing.

The business and park grew to its present size of 26 acres, incorporating very large pitches, two award-winning shower blocks, an ever-improving children’s play area, dog walking paddocks and nearly two miles of internal hedge planting together with a small wood and a wildflower meadow.

Some of the regular visitors have been returning now for 28 years. They now employ 16 staff during the season with a full-time staff compliment of seven. Davey has been with them for over 15 years with Suzie not so far behind!

And the farm? Well, last autumn they planted a mixed woodland of 4,500 trees, and also intend to restore some hedges initially bulldozed out in the 1960s.

Site info:
Monkton Wyld Holiday Park
Charmouth, Dorset

A site with large, spacious pitches, where every pitch backs up to a hedge or flower bed. Monkton Wyld is divided into several paddocks so you never feel ‘part of the crowd’. Superb shower blocks. Situated on the Dorset and Devon border, only three miles from the coast and beaches of Charmouth and Lyme Regis. It’s also quite easy to get to Dartmoor for an active day out.