A family park with its own inn, restaurant and pool, only a mile from the golden sands of Swanage Bay

Just a mile from the gorgeous sheltered sands of Swanage Bay lies a holiday park where the focus is firmly on families. It’s a fabulous choice for your base for long holidays and short breaks.

With an indoor pool, the park’s own Village Inn and restaurant, plus an extensive play area, Ulwell Holiday Park is a superb offering. And the area has a plethora of attractions and events all year.

So close to the sea, with the Purbeck Hills as a backdrop, and miles of fascinating coast stretching in both directions, the park is a brilliant centre for walking at all times of the year, owing to the mild climate of this sheltered region.

Take a stroll along the edge of the sand on the promenade that takes you almost the length of Swanage Bay, for example. The clear waters here have earned Swanage beach Blue Flag status and the gentle slope of the shore makes it ideal for swimming.

You can hire kayaks and pedalos here, or take a fishing trip. There’s a putting green, tennis and bowls at Swanage, too and, at nearby Langton Matravers, even a Purbeck stone carving centre. They have all this and more out close to Ulwell Holiday Park.

Swanage is at the eastern end of the 95-mile Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. This is a region of immense geological importance where rocks that offer a record of three geological time periods, the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, spanning 185 million years, are there for all to see.

You can hunt for fossils (guided fossil walks take place), visit the museums to learn more – or just enjoy the awesome scenery.

And there’s more…

A six-mile heritage railway leaves Swanage and takes you to Corfe Castle (a magnificent ruin with a 1,000-year history), a railway museum and the Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum. The Isle of Purbeck – not actually an island; it’s a peninsula – is criss-crossed by cycle and walking routes.

There are also four miles of beaches at Studland Bay. This region has discovery and exploration in spades. Ulwell Holiday Park’s season stretches from 1 March to 7 January.

Once you have your holiday home here, you’ll be able to enjoy not just the gorgeous summer but winter holidays, too. The park’s Village Inn is a cosy, focal spot both in winter and summer. The swimming pool is open all year. The shop is open from Easter until November and, and necessities, offers home-made cakes and coffee to go.

At Swanage, events take place throughout the year. These include jazz and folk festivals, an arts festival which starts late May, a fish festival in June with cooking demonstrations in the open air, plus the famous Swanage Carnival (late July), a Christmas market and more.

Few places can come close to Ulwell as a base for things to do and attractions to enjoy. New Holiday homes Ulwell Holiday Park has two new holiday homes for sale. These will be sited for the 2020 season; call reception for details.

Find out more here: www.ulwellholidaypark.co.uk