Making your arrival up the well-trodden track, you park in the farmyard where the wonderfully welcoming Sue will meet you with a tin of her delicious home-made apple cakes and show you around the eight acres of quiet pastureland. Guiding you through the pretty orchard, which at night is illuminated by a row of pretty solar lights, you're taken to the one-acre camping area of a six-acre meadow field .
Nestled within each outward corner of the camping area (allowing plenty of privacy for guests and plenty of room for kids to roam freely and safely) are the four traditional canvas bell tents. Each tent is named after the four hills that surround the field, and is equipped with a double futon and up to three child sized futons, solar-powered lanterns, hot water bottles, crockery and a cool box – and there’s also a toilet in the wooden 'wash hut' if you don’t fancy walking to the shower block in the barn extension at night.
Outside, you'll find a picnic table and tree stumps fashioned into chairs to sit on while you cook under the stars on the very efficient rocket stoves. For more ambitious meals, the cosy field shelter houses a gas camping stove, portable wood fired pizza oven and stove top smoker and the nearby barn kitchen has an oven, microwave, fridge and freezer, running hot water and a large dining table where you can enjoy communal meals.
And if you’re a family of foodies, this is definitely the place for you. The small honesty shop in “The Potting Shed” provides home grown fruit and veg and eggs from Old Bidlake's happy hens as and when available. It also stocks vital camping staples such as wood for the rocket stoves and marshmallows.
Sue is incredibly accommodating and has thought of everything to make a family camping holiday run smoothly – there are windbreaks, sunshades, high chairs, child size deckchairs, baby baths and even buckets and spades to borrow. A washing machine, washing line and iron eliminate tiresome trips to the launderette and she is happy to give advice about local activities and recommendations. Kids will feel like the Famous Five as they ride their bikes, explore the sprawling (to them at least) small-holding, help out with collecting the eggs or pick the fruit and veg. They can even go riding at the stables next door – and if they tire of that, the dramatic Jurassic Coast beach at Eype is only three miles, with the lively fishing harbour of West Bay just a fifteen-minute drive away.