The Creek Caravan Park site was started by Hilda Fisher in the 1920s. Her family still manage the park today.
When Hilda first arrived in Ringstead there was very few houses or infrastructure. Hilda paid for a new road and water to be brought down to her properties which enabled further expansion of the village.
The first caravans were made from old train carnages or old gypsy caravans. These used to be horse drawn and brought down to Ringstead through Southdown farm.
The earliest record of Coast Path Cottage formally know as Elizabeth cottage is 1936. A fisherman used to live in the cottage acting as a site warden.
It has always been very much a family site and we still have descendants of the same families from the 1930s with a caravan on the site.
Hilda in 1935 brought land in Osmington to start another caravan site up called King Fisher Caravans. The date of the first caravans at Osmington is unknown but we only recently discovered this and have been trying to dig more into history and hope to find out when it started. This site is now Osmington Lodges but there is still a pitch there called Kingfisher.
Hilda and her caravan site
When talking about the caravan site we also have to mention Dan the ‘lav man’ He had the unfortunate job of cleaning the facilities.
