A new glamping site – complete with a natural swimming pond and medieval moat – has opened just outside Norwich.
Moat Island Glamping, at Haveringland Hall Estate, is now taking its first customers, after two years of preparation to make it a reality.
The site is home to Lotus Belle tents, a medieval moat where the old Haveringland Hall would have once sat and a specially-designed natural swimming pond.
Lewis Ennals has worked with landowner Roy Benton and landscape architect Barnaby Baker to create the glamping site, and said it had been a long process.
"It's been a lot longer than I imagined," he said. "We fell in love with the land, but initially thought it would almost be a case of 'we'll put some nice tents in a field', but it's been a much bigger project. Our idea was to do glamping from the start. Roy, the owner, bought the land in April 2017 and bought into our vision straight away.
"We had to go through all sorts of archeological digs, ecology reports - it's been a long process."
The opening comes amid a boom in the popularity of glamping - last year, a market research company said more than 17m camping and caravanning trips were made in 2016, a figure which is expected to rise to more than 21m by 2020.
Three in 10 holidaymakers in the UK plan to spend more time holidaying at home than in previous years, while more than half of tourism businesses have reported a surge in domestic tourism since 2017 according to research published in May.
For Mr Ennals and Mr Benton, though, it is just the beginning - this month they have welcomed their first visitors, with some coming up from London to stay.
"We thought that when people think of holiday, they think swimming and pools, so we knew it was important," he said.
"It's all been based around that.It has been so nice to see people in the pond and dancing on the pontoon."
Their site includes an outdoor kitchen, as well as stargazer tents, which have a transparent roof.
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