Deepdale Backpackers and Camping - Burnham Deepdale, England

Info & Description

Welcome to this award winning eco friendly hostel accommodation and campsite on the beautiful north Norfolk coast, 'an area of outstanding natural beauty'.

Escape the smog of the cities to the coast and countryside around here. You can choose from a range of accommodation, private ensuite rooms to tipis, group hostel to dorm beds.

The facilities are a great place to chill or be as active as you like. All the facilities you need on the doorstep, including a cafe, information centre, supermarket, shops, walking and hiking, cycling, watersports and kiting.

We even have a bus service running to and from the front door, so you don't need to drive during your visit. The accommodation offers private ensuite rooms (double, twin, triple, quad and family) and dorm beds. The campsite offers tipis and camping pitches for tents and small campervans. The hostel is converted 17th century barns, incorporating eco-friendly technologies and traditional building methods. A fully equipped kitchen and sitting room are available. The campsite spreads across five grass paddocks and has modern toilet and shower facilities.

We ask all our customers to consider the environment. There are recycling facilities around the site and a large amount of information about non car transport including buses, walking and cycling (bike hire is available). We’ve incorporated green technologies and will soon add wind turbines. We plant a large number of trees each year around the site and farm.

Facilities

The accommodation consists of private rooms (double, twin, triple, quad and family rooms), dorm rooms (single sex and mixed sex), tent and campervan pitches (no caravans), tipis and a group hostel (sleeping 18).

BBQ area

Laundry

Drying room (Backpackers hostel only)

Fully equipped kitchen (Backpackers hostel only)

Sitting room with satellite TV (Backpackers hostel only)

Underfloor heating (including shower block)

Visitor Information Centre

Café

Shop and petrol station

Walk free baggage courier service

Internet access

Payphone

Luggage storage

Sailing school and watersports centre

Secure bike rack

Mail holding

Activities

Walking

Cycling

Windsurfing

Kiting & kite surfing

Sailing

Bird watching

Canoeing

Disabled access: The backpackers hostel has two wheelchair accessible ensuite rooms and most rooms are suitable for partially disabled customers. All the main rooms in the building are wheelchair accessible, including the kitchen and living room. The campsite has a disabled shower and loo. The information centre, café and shops are wheelchair accessible.

Family & baby friendly: Well behaved children are welcome. We do have a whole host of information for children’s activities and activity packs and toys in the information centre. There are two change tables on the campsite. In the hostel most rooms are big enough to accommodate travel cots.

Walking & cycling friendly: National cycle route 1 passes a couple of miles inland of here, which links up with route 30 to create the Norfolk coast cycleway. The Norfolk coastal footpath is superb and is very popular with our customers. It’s serviced very well by the Coasthopper bus service that picks up all along the path and drops you back here. We have a laundry and drying room.

Pet friendly: Quiet dogs on short leads are more than welcome on the campsite.

How this holiday makes a difference

We try to take into account the environment with all aspects of the business. The tourism side is marketed as eco-friendly and we’ve worked hard to get our visitors to be as environmentally friendly as possible. They are asked to recycle all their rubbish and to use their cars as little as possible. We actively promote the bus service, which connects with most of the local attractions and activities and also supply bike hire and walking information. We’ve installed green technologies where ever possible, such as underfloor heating, high efficiency boilers, solar water heating, motion sensors for lighting, low energy light bulbs, low flush and low flow water units. In the new retail site, staff loos are flushed with rain water, a test which we are hoping to roll out to other parts of the site. All toilets rolls are 100% recycled paper. All our tenants are required to recycle and for the entire site (hostels, camping, farm and retail units) we use just 3 wheelie bins, everything else is recycled.

The countryside stewardship walks are open to the public as walks, to cycle or for horse-riding. Hedge rows are retained to encourage bird life. A recent bird survey in 2003 showed that there are at least 52 species of bird breeding on the farm. Regular surveys of Flora and Fauna are carried out. A total of 149 different species of Flora and Fauna have been noted from the stewardship walks, including the exciting find of 16 different species of butterfly. Where possible, after we have combined the cereal crop, we try to leave the stubble fields over the autumn and winter. This provides a marvellous foraging ground for a wide range of birds. Pink-footed geese feed on the green tops left behind in sugar beet fields. They are a marvellous sight as they go over the farm each morning and evening. Great care is taken in the planning of the crops so as to minimise the need for chemical control of pests and diseases.

We are continually working towards environmental best practise and are always interested in new sources of advice. As members of the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association, we attend training days and discussion groups run by such organisations such as English Nature, RSPB and Drainage Boards. Over the years there have been dramatic changes to the way we undertake work on the farm, such as how we try to only clean one side of a ditch at a time, leaving somewhere for the animals and birds undisturbed.

We consider the local community and economy with every business decision. In the last five years we’ve created over 65 jobs. Not only have we developed the tourism facilities at the farm, which include the campsite, backpackers hostel, group hostel and tourist information centre, but they’ve also developed a retail site next door called Dalegate Market. The site of the retails site was to be sold as second homes, however Alister and Jason managed to save the site and have now created a retail site for 7 businesses including a café, supermarket and fuel station. These facilities not only offer jobs, but also offer excellent services to local and visitors to the area.

Above and beyond supplying facilities for businesses to work from and creating over 65 jobs, we help with marketing of the area. We run a village website and an associated leaflet that promote the local area. Through our information centre we support local events and activities by selling tickets and giving out information. We often host the village fete and other village events. Due to the number of people staying with us (over 25000 bed nights so far in 2008), many of the local businesses have been able to invest in year round staff and business improvements. We try to source products locally, for example the cleaning products are Bio-d which are a UK product. Our café offer catering and most of their produce is from the immediate area.