We are the Godden family. My name is Phill, alongside me is my wife Karyn and our children, Theo and Joshua.
Thornhills Farm is our family run business. Along with us is a great support team working hard to nurture our dream. We aim to ignite the traditional concepts of camping/caravanning holidays and create an unrivalled experience for all our guests. After several years of searching for the ideal location, we finally found Thornhills Farm in 2020, and here we now are!
However, the story began many years earlier, it started when I was a child, about six years old. We went camping and had the most amazing time as a family, we made memories that have lasted a lifetime… It was not glamping; in fact it was pretty raw but as kids we didn’t care! We did not have great showers, they were cold and uninviting, muddy and by today’s standard pretty poor! But as kids we loved being outside, we loved running around and loved meeting new friends. As a child I fell in love with the outdoors, with BBQ’s and glowing embers…. From those early memories grew a lifetime of camping, caravans, tents, the open air and a few times nothing more than a campfire and a sleeping bag.
Fast forward to about ten years ago I met Karyn and we went camping and travelled to lots of sites, some good, others great and well, of course, some … so so! We made more great memories camping – new friends and life in a tent was pretty good. Then a few years later we had our first child, Theo! I thought the best thing to do at the time was upgrade, time for our first Caravan! I spent weeks making her just perfect and ready for our first family adventure – so, just 3 weeks after Theo was born, we travelled from one side of the UK to the other towing our new home and it was the hottest weekend of that year, some thirty-three degrees and we had the worst weekend away ever!!! The site was everything we did not like about camping, it was rammed! Packed shoulder to shoulder, the queues for the showers took over an hour and everything was sticky and not clean. YUCK! We had a terrible time and could not wait to get home, to a clean bathroom!
We vowed to never go back and in fact, it was so bad we did not go back out in a caravan for a few years. But the dream was still alive we did get back out and loved it again! Now Theo is nearly eight, and Joshua his brother is nearly six! We love caravans again and love sharing our memories with the boys. Caravans are something special at any age, a mini home, almost outdoors but with a comfy warm bed and running water too! If you are looking at our site then you have the same …. Running through your veins.
There are no historical records for the main Thornhills Farmhouse before the ‘1800 Plan of the Manor of Othery’ we believe it was built around 1830. The long barn at the rear of the property were built at the same time and it is believed they were both thatched. Towards the end of the 19th century, this house and land was then known as Dairy Farm. Now known as Thornhills Farm, the site has been a caravan holiday park for 25 years.