Butcombe New Woods

Having the small clearing to ourselves was great, we were a group of 10 and booked something like this as we like to have a drink and play music. The compost toilets were good, plenty of spare buckets, saw dust and toilet roll was supplied too which was a nice touch. The sink area is very clever. There was recycling boxes and a bin provided. The shower was powerful and was very much welcomed as we were there during the hottest weekend of July. My cousin had 5 showers a day, she loved it that much thinking she was a celebrity in the jungle.

On arrival we were approached by a man from the field next to us to tell us how to park, he made it clear that we couldn’t park in front of the gate, however we had already been informed of this and parked no where near it. About an hour later another of our party arrived and he approached them again with the same information. It was like he didn’t want us there.
The walk from the main gate to the site was very over grown, we were stung by nettles and cut by the brambles, we found a stick and chopped what we could down.
The description states 5 acres of land to yourself, it’s actually a small clearing on a slope, we had to place wood under our tables to allow us to cook and place our drinks down without them tipping, several glasses were broken.
we all woke in the night as we were sliding out of bed, it was difficult to sit together as a group as we had to place our chairs carefully so they didn’t tip. One of the party actually sustained an injury from falling off his chair when it tipped. The slope is not “slight” as described.
On our first night at 10.45 we received a phone call to say we needed to keep the noise down, we only booked something to ourselves to allow us to be louder than would be allowed on a campsite. Be wary if you have dogs of leads a member of our party got two ticks from the long grass.

The seclusion of the site.

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We really enjoyed our stay at Butcombe New Woods. The site is exactly as it is described. The compost loo, cold shower and sink area all worked really well. The setting is beautiful with views of Bladgon Lake and easy access to good walks. The site is on a slope which is a slight downside but we were aware of this when booking.

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