Our Story · Bell Tent Village PARKS
It Started With
One Bell Tent.
A small family-run business with a big dream: helping more people step outside, reconnect with nature and experience camping in a completely different way.
What people see today has taken years of mistakes, setbacks, rain, risk, reinvestment and learning. We're still building it.
From A Family Camping Trip To An Outdoor Village
We definitely didn't start with a master plan.
In 2017 my kids wanted to go camping, so I bought our first ever bell tent. I loved the idea of being outside together, but that one purchase ended up setting off a chain of events that completely changed what I was doing.
Every year since has taught us something new.
Sometimes the lesson has been expensive.
Building Better Tents
Even before the site, we were trying to improve the tent.
Around 2017, before Bell Tent Village PARKS even had a site, I started working on a higher-sided bell tent.
The reason wasn't complicated. I was tired of bending down while fitting out the inside of tents.
So I designed a bell tent with taller side walls, creating much more usable room around the edge.
We called it the XL Bell Tent.
Today you see high-sided bell tents all over the market, but this reminds us how much of the business has always come from asking: “How can we make this better?”
2017
One family camping trip.
My kids wanted to go camping, so I bought our first ever bell tent. That was really where everything started.
2018
I started selling tents on eBay.
I thought the tent was a great product, so I started selling a few online for some extra money. Slowly, orders started coming in from customers around the UK.
2019
Then it all went wrong.
After successfully selling tents around the UK, my third batch was a disaster. Around 50 tents were terrible, some were leaking and the factory had produced a batch that simply wasn't good enough.
I had to start again, find a new factory and rebuild. It was a nightmare at the time, but it forced us to take product quality far more seriously.
2019
Then one camper asked a simple question.
While testing the tents at Holme Pierrepont one summer, another camper asked if the tent was available to hire.
That question changed everything. We decided to go all in and I invested every penny I had saved from selling tents into building a glamping site.
2020
The year we were meant to open.
Then COVID arrived. The site was shut and we weren't allowed to open. After investing everything into the idea, it was back to work and back to figuring out what came next.
2021
We finally opened.
We took bookings and proved that people wanted the concept. But we also realised pretty quickly that it wasn't quite right yet.
2022
Busier — but another lesson.
More guests started arriving, but we shared the field with ordinary campers. Guests started telling us the experience didn't feel private enough.
They were right.
2023
We finally got our own field.
We moved into a separate, larger field and could finally start creating the private glamping village we had imagined.
This was the point where it started to feel like Bell Tent Village PARKS rather than just a few tents on a campsite.
2024
Then it rained. And rained.
It felt like it rained for almost the entire year. The field flooded, guest numbers dropped and we were almost back to square one.
At one point, we came frighteningly close to losing everything.
2025
Better tents. Better atmosphere. Sunshine.
We reopened with better tents, more atmosphere and a stronger idea of what Bell Tent Village PARKS needed to become.
Thankfully, the weather gave us a chance and the sunshine returned.
2026
Our best year yet.
Another scorching summer, more guests and another year of improving the site little by little.
We continue to reinvest back into the villages, improving the tents, spaces, activities and overall experience.
Where It Really Started
The first field had just three tents.
When you see Bell Tent Village PARKS today, it can be easy to imagine there was always a big site and a big operation behind it.
There wasn't.
Our first proper field was incredibly simple. Only three tents went up.
Three tents, a lot of optimism and absolutely no idea how far the idea would go.
Where We Are Now
We finally got the chance to build properly.
Moving into our own field gave us the freedom to improve the experience rather than working around an ordinary campsite.
We wanted Bell Tent Village PARKS to work for people who might never normally choose camping.
We even developed and built our own proper flushing toilet facilities.
We wanted it comfortable. No sawdust toilets. Sleeping outside shouldn't mean giving up every home comfort.
✓ Proper flushing toilets
✓ Better furnished tents
✓ More private group spaces
✓ Communal areas and lounges
✓ Improvements made season after season
The Dream · 2019
I drew this in my bedroom before any of it existed.
In 2019 I sat in my bedroom and tried to draw what I hoped this could one day become.
The dream was never just to own a campsite.
It was to build an outdoor hotel business that could eventually exist in locations around the world.
The bigger idea was simple: invite more people into nature.
Create places where people who might never normally camp could experience the outdoors comfortably, spend time together, slow down and reconnect.
One day, the ambition is much bigger than one field: outdoor places around the world helping millions of people reconnect with nature.
We're nowhere near finished.
Who We Really Are
Just ordinary people with big dreams.
People sometimes arrive, see the size of the field and assume Bell Tent Village PARKS is some huge organisation.
It isn't.
We're a small family-run business learning as we go, reinvesting into the site and trying to make each season better than the last.
You may even see the kids working around the site, helping with jobs, moving things around or being part of the madness behind the scenes.
We make mistakes. The weather doesn't always cooperate. Ideas don't always work first time.
But we're enjoying the challenge and we're still dreaming big.
The People Behind The Village
It takes a village to run a village.
We're family-run, but none of this happens without the brilliant people who keep Bell Tent Village PARKS moving.
Customer Experience
Nano
Nano heads up customer experience and helps make sure guests are looked after from the moment they arrive.
Everything Inspector
Tyrone — AKA Pops
Pops is the old cat of the operation. He somehow spots the one thing everybody else has walked past twenty times and makes sure everything looks right.
Tent Specialists
Marlow, Rossi, Desi, Kenny & Sean
Our tent specialists are responsible for making the accommodation look fabulous — beds, interiors, tents and all the little details that turn canvas into somewhere people actually want to stay.
Housekeeping
Our Cleaning Team
The people who somehow reset the village after guests and make every tent feel fresh again for the next arrival.
The Grass Police
Our Grounds Team
Absolute legends. Like clockwork. No blade of grass is allowed to stay out of place for very long.
Everybody Else
The Village Crew
The people who jump in, fix things, move things, build things and somehow keep the madness working.
Team photo coming soon.
Some of the people who make the madness work.
Back The Next Chapter
Fancy being part of what comes next?
We've had people ask whether they can support the future of Bell Tent Village PARKS.
So we're exploring a crowdfund-style supporter model where people could help us grow in return for things such as free stays, accommodation credit, exclusive merchandise, experiences and supporter perks.
Nothing is live yet.
Right now, we simply want to understand who might be interested, roughly how much they might consider contributing and what they would actually want back in return.
Help build the future of outdoor living.
Registering interest doesn't commit you to anything. No payment is taken.
More Life Outdoors
The dream is still the same.
Help more people get outdoors. Create places where families, friends, teams and communities can reconnect with each other and with nature.
Give people who might never normally choose camping a comfortable way to experience the outdoors.
And keep improving Bell Tent Village PARKS — one season, one field and one idea at a time.
See you outside.
— The Bell Tent Village PARKS Team