Club 80-90 Forums

I can get a bit cagey about great sites but the quality of folk in 80-90 means i felt I should reccomend, especially when campsites in this ara can be such a rip off and nasty caravans with picket fence affairs...!

OK first and foremost, NEVER EVER stay on Helston farm @ swanage, especially on a bank holiday, overcrowded, huge disgusting facilities, litter in the hedges and a total swindle @ £25 /night no hook p miles from facilities....

Any way the goodies:

heading west from Lyme Regis is a village called Whitchurch Canonicorum about 5 mles inland off the coast rd. In the village (which is very pretty & sleepy) is a pub called the 5 bells. they have a camping field and a shower and toilet at the back of the pub. from the top of the fields the view is amazing. No hookup but its a flat fee of £10 / night no extras. They allow fires as well. the pub is great and still serves basket meals for £5 in your good old plastic basket! beach is maybe 20 mins drive. and the landlady tells me she never has more than a handful of campers except for scout camp in august. we ended up staying twice.

This place is not on the net or in guides and is only signposted with a little painted sign off the main rd, lets keep it that way!!

Other great site was near Branscombe in Devon - Coombe View Farm. great site, fires allowed in end field, hookup in top field. sea views etc etc 3 other VWs there when we were. we paid £15 +£3 hookup for 2 adults 1 child and a toddler. spotless site, grass like carpet, and did i mention the view... website here:

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Anyway just thought id share my finds

Interesting little spot well worth a visit.

Whitchurch Canonicorum or Whitechurch Canonicorum is a village in south-west Dorset, England, situated in the Marshwood Vale five miles northwest of Bridport.

The village has a population of 647 (As of 2001[update]); 10.1% of dwellings are second homes. It is also the burial place of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.

The church is noteworthy as containing the only shrine in Britain to have survived the Reformation with its relics intact, apart from that of Saint Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. The saint in question is the somewhat obscure Saint Wite (Latinised as Saint Candida) after whom the church and the village are named. Some have tried to identify her as the Breton Saint Gwen Teirbron. However a local tradition considers her to be a Saxon woman, probably a hermit or anchoress martyred by Danes in the course of a raid in the year 831.[1]

Sir George Somers (1554–1610) was the Mayor of Lyme Regis and later Governor of The Somers Isles (Bermuda) he died "of a surfeit in eating of a pig", on November 9, 1610 in Bermuda. His heart was buried in Bermuda but his body, pickled in a barrel, was landed on the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1618. A volley of muskets and cannon saluted his last journey to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum where his body is buried.

Also there's a fantastic pub, bay & good camping at Seatown. In fact that's all there is so don't know where they got the town bit from...

Turn down a single lane track at Chideock on A35.

The pub does great food, though can be a bit pricey but really tasty, with a garden on a crumbling cliff face. Often has live music as well.

Long, sometimes empty, beach for kids/dogs. Walks over the Golden Cap, think it's the highest point around here, during the day & the Milky Way above at night

Brilliant!!

Think pitches with hook up were around £20ish

Anymore???

We just stayed at Hook Farm in Uplyme. Very friendly with lovely views of the valley from the top field. 40min stroll along the river path into lyme regis or a bus every hour which can take you to chideock and from there it's a mile to seatown and a few miles to walk back to lyme regis. A pub 5 mins away from the site too but we never had time to go

Cheers...Steve wrote:Also there's a fantastic pub, bay & good camping at Seatown. In fact that's all there is so don't know where they got the town bit from...

Turn down a single lane track at Chideock on A35.

The pub does great food, though can be a bit pricey but really tasty, with a garden on a crumbling cliff face. Often has live music as well.

Long, sometimes empty, beach for kids/dogs. Walks over the Golden Cap, think it's the highest point around here, during the day & the Milky Way above at night

Brilliant!!

Think pitches with hook up were around £20ish

Anymore???

Be aware the lane leading to Seatown can be a nighmare to get down on a sunny day. The lane is about the width of a car, which ends up in a standoff with oncoming traffic.

Nice place though.
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thats settled it then, after looking at very commercial overpriced sites in the Lyme Regis area we are off to Whitchurch Canonicorum to the field at the back of a pub on Friday 1st July for the weekend. It sounds right up our street. I will let you know how we get on and i promise i wont tell a soul.
Rob.

Hope you enjoy it Rob, the sites down there can be really commercial and so expensive, call me old fashioned but wasnt the point of camping that it was cheap and back to basics!?

let me know how you like - oh and also the pub menu is pretty std monday to friday (except the £5 basket meals which are a must for nostalgias sake) but fri / sat the specials board explodes with nice food.

Also take your ramps- youll need them

this the spot at the top you want but a little further right brings the church spire into your vista nicely!!



enjoy!

Just got home from a weekend at the Five Bells campsite. We have all had a great time £10 per night for 2 adults, 3 kids, 2 dogs and a large awning.
We had the field to ourselves for the 1st night then were joined by 2 T4's for the second.
The views were just amazing and it was great to let the dogs just run around the field.
We went to Lyme Regis on Saturday and our favourite place, Kimmeridge Bay on the way home on Sunday, the man who takes the money to park told us that if we wanted to we could park up for the night in a small car park about half a mile away and nobody would bother us. We will probably try that next weekend.
Anyway back to the 5 Bells, this really is a wonderful site and fantastic value, a good but basic shower and we even were allowed a fire so we dug the turf up and replaced it in the morning. I wouldnt recommend eating in the pub, it was ok and i have not had Scampi in a basket for years, but we would of had a nicer meal if we had made it ourselves.
We will be going back soon.
Thanks for the recommendation
Rob, Rachel and Kids.

One of our dogs, Daisy, all camped out on the way home.

This is what we call the adjustamitic table, its the bed base which pulls out and we use 2 adjustable hiking poles with the grips removed to keep it stable.

Do you have the later photos the first one with the bedding all covered in fat spits and the second one when the bbq slid back onto the bed and set it alight?

You can mock all you like, but im proud of my adjustamatic table. Its very useful on uneven ground. I would post the after pics but the camera was destroyed in the resulting fire

leerobert10 wrote:You can mock all you like, but im proud of my adjustamatic table. Its very useful on uneven ground. I would post the after pics but the camera was destroyed in the resulting fire

Indeed

Glad you liked it and happy to share it with the good people of club 80-90!!!

Sadly I'll never go there again. Been staying there for 20 odd years, and every year "improvements" are made to the site.
The latest seems to be a bunch of touring caravans lined up permanently overlooking the sea. So all you get to see now in the back of a bunch of caravans.
Gravel road through the fields now and lots of fences.
Sadly its lost all of its charm. Its a real shame as I've had lots of great times there.
Still you can't stand in the way of progress.

Just my 2ps worth
Rich

good it is useful..