A touch of history

rECrEATIONAL camping in Britain can be traced back to the craze for pleasure-boat rides along the Thames in the 1880s. Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat, published in 1889, includes a description of such riverside camping.

IN 1897, Thomas Hiram Holding, a tailor, designed a small, lightweight tent and went on a biking holiday in Ireland.

Holding’s account of his experiences, Cycle And Camp In Connemara, led to the formation of the country’s first camping group in 1901.

It was called the Association Of Cycle Campers, which later morphed into the Camping And Caravanning Club.

LAWS allowing paid annual holidays, combined with ease of train travel, led to holiday camps opening by seaside towns, with some people choosing to camp.

INCrEASING car ownership in the Sixties and Seventies allowed people to take tents in cars to parts of the country that were previously inaccessible. The 1969 film Carry On Camping picks up on this trend.

IN THE Nineties, the term ‘ glamping’ was coined — glamorised camping in yurts, log cabins and treehouses.