Warner’s Woodside Bay Holiday Camp

Woodside House, located in Wootton in the Isle of Wight, occupied a prime location with its 31-acre grounds sloping down towards the Solent. During the 1950s the grounds were being used as a naturist camp. In 1961, planning permission was granted to Warner’s to transform the grounds into a holiday camp, despite 90% of the locals objecting. The planning committee pointed out that it didn’t involve a change of use and that, in law, “there was no change of use between using a camp for nudists or for those who wore clothes”.

In 1963, Warner’s Woodside Bay officially opened, featuring 215 brick chalets and capable of accommodating 650 guests. Facilities included an outdoor pool, a large communal dining hall, and an entertainment building with a clubhouse and bar. The site was full board with all meals included so the chalets consisted of nothing more than a bedroom and bathroom. Meals were taken in a huge communal dining room.

In 1969, a hovercraft service was introduced, offering a 10-minute ride from the camp to nearby Southsea. However, locals protested the service, wading into the sea and blocking the inaugural trip, forcing the hovercraft to detour further up the coast.

The camp appears to have been built on the cheap and received more than its fair share of complaints about bad food, rude staff, poor entertainment, unhygienic conditions and substandard accommodation.

A camper revolt in 1975 attracted much negative publicity when a woman claimed the Yorkshire puddings “were not fit to eat”. Things spiraled out of control and the next day 400 campers came forward with their own complaints about the food including about birds flying around in the dining hall, staff smoking while serving food and waitresses walking around barefoot. More complaints followed about the state of the chalets and of toilets not being properly bolted to the floor. New campers arriving for their holiday were met with a crowd of protesters urging them to turn around and go home. Managing director Alen Warner had to fly in on his private helicopter to diffuse the situation.

In 1981, the Warner family sold their holiday camp business to Grand Metropolitan, who closed Woodside Bay just a year later. Plans for refurbishment never materialized, and the main entertainment building was destroyed in an arson attack shortly after. The site remained abandoned and vandalised for the next 30 years.

Eventually, the site was sold for £4.5 million, and demolition work commenced to clear the remnants of the old camp. In 2014, a new £15 million holiday complex opened on the site known as Woodside Bay Lodge Retreat.

We’d love to hear your memories and stories of Warner’s Woodside Bay. Please feel free to share your comments below.