There are number of CAMC CL, C&CC CS and independent camp sites that are explored as part of our adventure. We have visited and have future bookings for these locations. This page captures our reviews and recommendations from our experience.
What is a CL?
A certificated location (or ‘CL’) is an informal privately owned caravan site for up to 5 caravans in the United Kingdom. Visitors with caravans or motorhomes pay a small fee to the CL owner in order to pitch overnight. This is usually cheaper than larger commercial caravan sites.
There are over 2200 CL’s in the UK and they are for exclusive use by Caravan And Motorhome Club members. Each year the Caravan And Motorhome Club issues a certificate to those sites that continue to meet their standards, hence ‘certificated locations’. Caravan And Motorhome Club members vote annually for the best CL in the ‘CL of the Year’ competition.
What is a CS?
A Certificated Site (or ‘CS’ ), are small, privately run campsites operated exclusively for members of the Camping and Caravanning Club. CS’s can take a maximum of five caravans or motorhomes at any one time for up to 28 consecutive days, allowing space of six metres between each unit. If space permits, the site can also accept a maximum of ten tents, unless express permission has been granted by the Club to accommodate more. There are over 1250 CS’s in the UK.
To set up a site, the landowner must have a minimum of half an acre of land, provide safe access to and from the site, a dustbin that’s regularly emptied, a drinking water supply and a chemical disposal point (a facility for the campers to empty their chemical toilets). The site will be inspected annually by the Club to ensure that the site meets expectations.
Dakota Park – Lincolnshire
May 2021
https://www.dakotapark.co.uk/the-caravan-park
This is a friendly and unique certified location (CL). Situated between Horncastle and Boston, a stones throw from Tattershall and at the end of the runway of RAF Coningsby – it is quickly clear to see how the site takes its name. The splendour of this site is the spectacular sights of the RAF fleet taking off, landing and practicing in the skies above the pitches! Easy to find but the two things to be mindful of are traffic through the centre of Boston (avoid and take the longer routes around the edge of the town) and the severe cambers on the B1192 – there are steep ditches to the side! The site is run by a friendly team with all the essential and clean facilities to hand. There are some stunning places to visit around Lincolnshire. There is fantastic shopping at Lincoln, Boston, Spalding, Horncastle and Woodhall Spa. There are a vast amount of local museums. There is also fishing, golf, go karting, swimming, cinema in the woods! Horse riding, farm parks, restaurants, pubs with stunning beer gardens, riverside walks and woodland walks to name a few.
Castle Howard (lakeside holiday park) – North Yorkshire
August 2021
https://www.castlehowardholidayhomes.co.uk/touring-and-camping
We had high expectations for this site given the heritage and image that the entire Castle Howard estate pervades. This was booked to end our second summer getaway. We often use the Caravan and Motorhome Club or the Camping and Caravanning Club sites and so we wanted to end this tour with something special and try something different and new to us. Castle Howard has a reputation – but sadly we have felt let down and that it is missing the mark with this venture – its in our opinion – and is an opinion widely reported on and reviewed upon this summer on the likes of http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk – that this is income over service – a fine balance they need to improve.
With club sites and CL/CS you come to expect a certain standard of service and expectation for the price you pay. This is where Castle Howard falls at hurdle one. The price for a night is above that of a club site and well above that of a CL or CS. We were firstly disappointed by the pitch – the site is portrayed as one of ‘lakeside’ and whilst this can be seen from the air on google maps – the lake ‘views’ are somewhat hidden by hedgerows with limited access. Once you do gain access to a small pocket of lakeside path – in massive contradiction to the ‘dog friendly’ access to the house and gardens itself – dogs were not permitted on this section. Hmm – so where do you walk them? Secondly the estate have ‘cashed in’ on the caravan/camper/tenting staycations and have an additional open field (without any real organisation or sensible spacing of pitches) to the main caravan park with the hardstanding and grass pitches (as found on the website and image below). Here comes the fall at hurdle two. This massive increase in pitches and people on site has resulted in two issues – they have just a single toilet and shower block – limiting to four adults per sex in the blocks – this simply has not coped with the visitor numbers. An additional temporary portakabin toilet block was put on site with two additional toilets and sinks – but both these had constant queues of people. We were assigned the pitch next to this portakabin – which proved just dreadful. Cars were frequently coming and going from the additional field to use the facilities at all hours. This did not make for a relaxed stay. The toilet block and additional cabin were not well maintained or cleaned often enough and were simply below standard. This was a £35 per night stay and I would not use these facilities. Aside from day to day poor cleaning the block is ageing and out of date. This does not sit well with the price point and image of Castle Howard.
Location and the ‘holiday park’ – these are the falls at hurdles three and four. The campsite is a 1km walk from the house, garden centre, cafes and farm shop itself. Bear in mind the land and estate is all one encompassing entity of ‘Castle Howard’ – you take your life in your hand trying to get to the house complex. As the house and grounds are a pay for venture, I understand that access around the complex will be locked down, however you have to walk along two roads – in the road – to get from the holiday park to the facilities – this is not good enough and the estate are missing a trick in not having a more substantially improved pathway up to the house. This is poor. This was also difficult for walking the dogs – given they own the land either side of the road – why is this not being addressed? Secondly – could the access to the grounds be offered from the holiday park side – this is made unnecessary complex! Now bear in mind that during the day these are the only food/cafe outlets nearby – so they are restricting income and ease of access for users of the site. Brings us on to hurdle four – the definition of ‘holiday park’ – with no real amenities what is this?
Given our recent experience this is not a site we would recommend – this is a shame as we had great hopes for our stay here. This was not good value for money and the management have not though through the connection of the ‘holiday park’ to the Castle Howard offering. This needs improvement before we return.
Orchard Farm (Bosham) April 2022 https://heycamping.co.uk/04369607/Orchard_Farm_Campsite We stopped off at this little independent site at the end of our Easter tour 2022 – to meet up with friends old and new and took a trip from Minehead to Orchard Farm, Bosham on the south coast. The site has a structured field next to the storage and then a rear field which we stayed on where you could park in an arrangement that suits yourself or your party. EHU was provided but there are no facilities blocks – waste goes into the hedge, toilet waste point and there is a water filling up point (no motorhome service point). This was well priced for 3 nights at £48. The Bosham Inn is just at the end of the lane with good food and drink.
Fields End Water (Doddington, Cambridgeshire) March 2022 https://www.fieldsendwater.co.uk/ For a short break, relax and unwind we could not recommend this site more. It came to us on a recommendation and we pass on that love! There are three areas for pitching up – main site, the fishing ponds and the paddock as well as rentable lodges and fishing plus day fishing options, a cafe, superb facilities and nice walks out into the fields. You are short hop from March, Guyhurn, Whittlesey and Huntingdon. The village of Doddington is a short walk (but a lot of it is without pavements if you have the fur babies with you). There are local shops and petrol station in the village and garden centre nearby. We chose this for a ‘do little’ recharge and was just a 45 minute drive from the storage so ideal for us for a cheeky weekend. At £42 for two nights this is very reasonable.
Wagtail Country Park (near Grantham, Lincolnshire) July 2022 https://www.wagtailcountrypark.co.uk. This is quite an impressive site. We really liked the secluded and quiet nature of the site – and whilst there are a lot of anglers on the lakes and a number of seasonal pitches, it is enjoyable. A bar and food wagon permanently on site are good and popular. Pitches are large and well spread out and the one we had was with nice hedges in between (Pitch 17) on the map below). Friendly staff and fellow campers – we made the most fo the two days here. Grantham is a 15 minute drive and similar to Belton House. The only advice is around access if you are travelling from the south up the A1 – the sat nav wants you to turn right over the oncoming two lanes of traffic (having used this junction on many occasions in a car – which is a challenge enough) the best advice is to go two junctions up and over the A1 and come back down southbound and turn left into the road at the petrol station. The other point to note is the quality of the last mile – the roads are incredibly poor (as of July 2022) with adverse cambers and cracked tarmac on the edges, plus a pot hole ridden road down into the site – just something to be mindful of. Not a moan – as we took our time – but be aware and easy for this – as this was a trip with a new motorhome it defined the ‘shakedown’ methodology.
Pinewoods (Spoonbill Touring Park) – Wells-next-the-Sea
July 2022
https://www.pinewoods.co.uk
We had this booked for almost a year! We love Wells-next-the-Sea and have only done day visits when we have been staying at either Sandringham or West Runton. Normally we park in the town and walk down to the front but this flipped that around with a great location right next to the beach and main Pinewoods static site.
There is a super overview from the Pinewoods site itself:
About Spoonbill Drift Touring Park
Our impressive Spoonbill Drift touring park at Pinewoods opened in April 2017. Sitting on the edge of the main Pinewoods site, it offers 116 spacious pitches for touring caravans and motor homes. It is adjacent to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with big open views of the marshland countryside, Holkham National Nature Reserve and a wide expansive view back towards Wells town. Spoonbill Drift has been designed to minimise it’s impact on the landscape both environmentally and visually with the maximum amount of large accessible pitches and the minimum amount of road.
The pitches themselves are neatly maintained and comprise of a 3 metre by 9 metre fibre-reinforced grass standing area with polyethylene porous grid paving. Each pitch has electricity, water and grey water waste points as standard. We allow the spaces between pitches and access road to grow as wild and natural grassland to encourage wildlife bio-diversity. This helps support the park’s other use as a traditional grazing ground for over-wintering flocks of Brent, Pink-footed Geese and Widgeon who arrive long after our summer guests have departed.
For the exclusive use of our touring park guests via a personal key card, the Spoonbill Drift touring park has two award winning state-of-the-art amenity blocks, complete with toilets, showers, washing up facilities and launderettes. Please note these are closed from 31st October.
We really did enjoy staying here and the weather was amazing. Pitch 63, whilst near the entrance was a good spot with lots of space around it! We liked the hardstanding rectangle within the main pitch, serviced pitch facilities and short walk to the main site shops and amenities.
Emberton Country Park – Olney, Buckinghamshire
August 2022 https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/environment-parks-and-open-spaces/emberton-country-park/camping-and-caravanning
We chose to give this local camping site a go as a result of a cancelled weekend we had at the back end of July. With Andy on a school holiday pattern and Jamie at work – this gave us a cheeky mid week break that would allow Jamie to work by day and for us both to explore and learn more about this country park that has been on our doorstep for so long.
So what did we think of this experience? Let’s start with booking. This was really simple and like most independent sites was a booking by telephone. There was a reasonable wait to speak to a customer service operative but once connected they could not be more helpful. Payment was in advance and by telephone and confirmation swiftly followed in an email. At this stage you were allocated a pitch number (on this occasion we had Pitch 35) – the reason for this is the size of the vehicle (whether that be a caravan, motorhome or camper) as some pitches are shorter in length than others. We opted for the EHU point. Booking confirmed that an additional car does not need to pay anymore to enter and Jamie was able to use the fob to come and go from work.
On arrival the email served as confirmation and welcome pack was waiting at the gate (this meant no costs for entering the park as this is wrapped in the pitch cost). The entrance is adequate (not overly tight but I was very slow driving through the barrier and our last motorhome may have been a challenge as it was wider). There is a short drive up through the park to the camping ground. The facilities are basic but adequate – but there are some very basic features when it comes to the water point, waste and WC disposal point. The water is a push button that lasts around 20 seconds – so you send a lot of time pushing this to fill a water carrier – there is no motorhome service point and the pressure on the taps would probably not work well with the hoses you would normally use. The pitches themselves are well spaced if somewhat uneven! This is a country park after all so not a problem – just took some negotiating and trying out positions to get as level as we could!
The county park itself is a great spot. Plenty of walks around the lakes and a short walk into Olney itself that has much to offer from groceries, pubs, cafes and antiques shops. There are also occasional markets. This is a very pleasant place to visit and walk to with the fur babies. We enjoyed the evening walks around the lakes. There is plenty to offer everyone – especially if you have families with two playgrounds and an coffee shop.
The site is owned and managed by Milton Keynes Council. They have produced a comprehensive document that can be found through this weblink – including a site overview, plan, how to book, facilities on offer and the rules and regulations for a stay in this country park. https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/M19228%20Come%20camping%20ECP.pdf
Two Guys, Two Dogs, Four Wheels 