Taking time in the woods to live life well
wild camping in Dorset
Read about our 'Winter Day Pitches' - getting outside and into the woods during winter
Welcome to Southover Woods - discover wild camping in Dorset
Southover Woods offers a unique holiday experience in beautiful woods and meadows, with nearly wild camping and a range of different experiences and activities aimed at enhancing your wellbeing through connecting with nature. Keeping life simple and looking after the environment are central to the ethos of the woods.
You will find that the pitches are well spaced and set into natural hollows and glades, allowing space for you to relax and breathe and children to play and explore. The amenities are simple and wherever possible made on site from local wood and materials. There are six wild woodland camping sites, eight meadow camping pitches and a hammock area called hammock hill. On offer is an incredible range of activities and adventures, so you can create the perfect holiday for all the family, with something for everyone.
The woodlands extend to over 60 acres of woodland, with 2 adjoining meadows, nestled in the South Dorset countryside. Only 20 minutes from the Jurassic coast, and connected by numerous bridleways and footpaths to both local and national walks, it is perfectly positioned for a wonderful break. Animals are welcome, and there is a pony paddock if you want to bring your ponies or horses to enjoy the fantastic hacking that can be reached from the gate.
Winter Day Pitches
Available from November 1st to March 31st. Come and spend the day in the woods at one of our 3 winter pitches in either Tenders, Villager or hammock hill. Have full access to the woods to walk and explore, and use of the pitch including firepit, kettle and composting loo. Bring food and cook outside, and use our kettle for hot drinks.
Access is via a rutted track, so you will need a 4 x 4 or suitable vehicle, or to walk from Tolpuddle (about 15 mins). We offer a serviced day pitch as well, where we supply water, a sack of logs and kindling to your pitch. Prices below, dogs are welcome, but please dispose of their messes responsibly.
our Wild woodland CampSITES
There are six wild woodland camping sites, spaced throughout Southover Woods. Each site has plenty space to for you to pitch your tent and create your own natural home for the night. The sites have their own fire pits, wild showers that can be filled with hot or cold water and composting loos. We will also provide you with a kettle and grill to cook and heat water.
Wild woodland camping in Lordship, Villager, Decanter and Hammock Hill
Camp in our beautiful woodland sites
Wild woodland camping in Tenders
Wonderful wild camping in your own 12 acre site, with yurt and outdoor cooking area
Wild woodland camping in Greyhound
Relax in total privacy in the most tucked away site in wonderful light birch woodland.
Wild woodland camping in Craftsmen
An uplifting site with open spaces and beech, fir and birch woodland.
woodland Site Map
MEADOW Camping, EVENTS & PONIES
Prices
Pitch | Cost per night for each pitch |
Lordship, decanter, villager | £10 per adult, £5 per child aged 5-16 |
Meadow pitches | £10 per adult, £5 per child aged 5-16 |
Craftsmen and greyhound | £40 for the wild site + £10 per adult, £5 per child aged 5-16 |
Tenders including yurt and field kitchen | £100 for the wild site + £10 per adult, £5 per child aged 5-16 |
Winter day pitches - Tenders, villager and hammock hill | £20 per day for a group of up to 6 people (including children)£50 for a serviced pitch per day for a group of up to 6 people (including children) |
Children under 5 and dogs are free of charge for camping
Camping is available from 1st April to 31st October - the site is closed for camping over winter
Booking enquiry
Activities
Need to know
Our ethos is simplicity, and our aim is to help people connect with nature in whichever way is right for them. We want to help people improve their wellbeing through spending time in our woods and meadows - taking time in nature to live life well. Whenever we can we make things using our own resources and employing our family members or close friends. This means that things will be homemade, and we hope you enjoy this element of our amenities. It can also sometimes mean that there are some rougher finishes and that our amenities are, while adequate, basic.
We ask that everyone who comes to Southover woods respects our simple rules to ensure that they can spend their time in harmony with the other people who are staying
- There is a no vehicles policy in Southover woods, we ask people to park outside the woods in our parking area and use the wheelbarrows provided to transport their kit to their pitches. If people have mobility issues then we have pitches that are accessible by vehicle, and this can be agreed on a person by person basis.
- We ask you to respect the other campers privacy and not walk through other pitches, and keep music and noise to a minimum during the day with no music played after 9pm.
- We are happy for you to bring dogs into the woodland and wild sites, but there are no dogs in the meadow camping sites. Please keep your dogs under control and in sight at all times and make sure that dog waste is buried or disposed of in thick undergrowth - please do not use plastic bags.
- Please take your rubbish home, or take it to the local municipal sites.
- Don' t leave fires unattended without covers on them. There are fire pits for everyone, please be responsible with this as we run our site on a trust basis.
- PLEASE DO NOT USE DISPOSABLE BBQs
General information and health and safety:
We have built our own composting loos with pits below them. Please use these loos for your poos, but whenever possible go for wild wees. To help with the composting process please put ash from your fires on top of your waste in the drop below the loo. If you have run out of ash then use mulch from the wood floor or sawdust provided in the welcome hut or found on the quarry floor.
Water is available at 3 standpipes. We provide one aquaroll of water at Craftsmen, Greyhound and Tenders, but we don't provide water containers to any other pitches so please bring your own.
Logs are available at a cost of £5 per bag, and are to be found in the service areas where there is an honesty box or you can use the southover woods pay pal account.
There are grills on each firepit for cooking on, but we don't supply leather gloves or BBQ tools, or equipment for cutting wood and kindling.
Our showers are wild and can be filled with warm or cold water, and then pulled up and tilted. We provide a shower enclosure made by ourselves with a rubber mat on the ground for keeping your feet out of the mud. If you want a warm shower we encourage you to heat the water on your fire pit and fill your shower from this to your desired temperature. A kettle is provided by each shower, please return it to the shower after use.
Safety in Southover woods - our woods are wild natural places full of badger and fox dens, shake holes and branches, trees and puddles and ponds. There are many ways that people can fall or hurt themselves and we cannot take any responsibility for this. Of note in our woodland are the numerous shake or sink holes. These are scattered throughout and make the terrain very unpredictable and very interesting. Branches can fall from trees in high winds and we reserve the right to close the site if the weather forecast is very severe. Fires are the sole responsibility of those who light them. There are often deer in the woods in the early part of the season. Where deer are present there are also sometimes ticks present, particularly in long grass. For advice in regard to tick management please refer to Public Health England advice.
If you book a pitch in Southover woods you are taking full responsibility for your safety and for the safety of those in your party.