History

We’re a family business, we love our home and we’ve been welcoming visitors to the Solway coast for over 40 years.

In 1968 the Caravan and Camping Club asked to hold their summer rally in the lambing field (now home to the tourers). They liked it so much they wanted to come back the following year, which got Dad thinking… He and Mum applied for planning permission and opened Brighouse Bay Holiday Park in 1970 alongside the family organic dairy, beef and sheep farms, Southpark and Cairniehill.

The shepherd’s cottage is now the warden’s home.  Our first wardens, Percy and Mrs Mudd, ran the shop and park reception in what is now our family and disabled bathroom in the main toilet block. The first old tractor in the children’s play area had a much more pedestrian life previously with Gramps.

Outside that old shop at the main toilet block, there’s a patch of grass where we used to feed and show our pet lambs to visitors. We sold raw organic milk from churns there too and Goldie, our old Palamino, gave children pony rides.

The park expanded from tourers, seasonals and tents to include privately-owned larger holiday caravans, a small hire fleet and farm cottages for let. We put in the all-tide slipway in 1973 and hired out rowing boats, canoes and sailing dinghies, ran a water sports school and took boat trips round to Ross Island from the mid-70s and into the early 80s. We started the pony trekking with some hardy Highlands in 1976.

We opened an outdoor swimming pool in 1978 and later added an indoor games room.  In 1993 we went the whole hogg and put up the Leisure Club.

The initial 9 hole golf course was opened in 1999 and extended seven years later to a full 18-hole 6,750 yard, par 73 SSS72 course (to non-golfers that means ‘with bells on’)

Seaward joined the stable in autumn 1979. Site manager, George, used to cycle, very slowly, on an ancient black bike from his home about a mile away to the park, that peaceful haven with spectacular views over Kirkcudbright Bay

Our parents bought Barlochan in 1982 followed soon after by Sandyhills Bay, the small park with the big beach near Dumfries.

We’ve been so lucky to work with many amazing people over the last few decades, some of whom have spent much of their working lives with us and contributed such a lot to this business and to making visitors’ holidays special. Thank you to them and to you for choosing us.