A Brief History of Cumulus Outdoors Residential Centre
November 5th, 2020
The history of our school trip residential centre in Swanage.
The early years…
In 1929, the Bournemouth Rotary Club decided to open a residential centre ‘to give the poorest children from the dark slums of great cities a holiday in healthy surroundings’.
This step was the first one in a long line culminating in the Cumulus Outdoors Residential Centre as we see it today. Involving 91 years of evolution with refurbishment, rebuilding and improving. The Centre has undergone various changes and has experienced, amongst other things, lightning strikes and being taken over by the War Office.
It’s interesting imagining the Townsend Centre, as it was originally known, with all the mod-cons provided in the 1930s. Mr Trim from Wimbledon School stated:
‘Nothing is forgotten; we have the wireless provided, there is a piano and a platform, also electric lights and full washing facilities.’
There was one dormitory, Durlston, at the top of the site which we still use. The boys who attended (only boys at this time) had to make up their own beds and were able to take a shower in the outside washhouse where there were 20 basins in a row with a single bath and shower at one end. The dining room doubled up as the common room for times of wet weather, but on dry days the boys were able to visit the beach, Corfe Castle and Durlston. If they were lucky, they could also journey to Bournemouth on The Waverley Steamer which still visits Swanage today!
The caretakers, Mr & Mrs Locke who lived in the building now used as the office, looked after the boys during the visit and provided all of their food with some of the boys helping to peel the vegetables or dig the garden. The fresh air, good food and new experiences were the basis for this planned type of holiday
Over the next 80 or so years, the Centre grew from a small holiday camp for deprived boys into a large fully functioning school residential centre with beds for 100 students and their teachers. Educational lessons and fun sessions filled the week and the children went home to London with new experiences and new skills. Girls were allowed to join the fun in 1975/76 and the Centre flourished with happy children enjoying the sights and sounds of a seaside town.
The operating body changed from the London County Council, to the GLC and then more specifically Greenwich Borough Council. Wide Horizons, a trust set up by GBC in 2007, continued to run the educational and recreational camps in Swanage until the late summer of 2018, when unfortunately, financial difficulties resulted in them ceasing to trade.
Cumulus Outdoors, November 2019 to date
Today Cumulus Outdoors have taken over the site – aiming to continue the tradition of providing fun filled residential trips for young people in Dorset. There are 3 dormitories, which are mainly 4 bedded rooms, each with their own ensuite facilities, where the children are still expected to make their own beds. We can accommodate up to 133 students and leaders on site. Everyone is catered for morning and evening, but all make their own packed lunches for the middle of the day.
We have a fully qualified team of staff supervising the children during their residential stays and we can, of course, offer far more depth in the adventure activities and experiences the children can undertake in comparison to the early years! We have field study facilities, learning experiences with links to the school curriculum or purely fun outdoor adventure school trips used as a reward at the end of term. Outdoor activities such as coasteering, climbing, kayaking, bushcraft, mackerel fishing, archery and more are all available to create bespoke programmes to fit the aims and objectives of each visiting school.
We pride ourselves on the quality of the school trips we offer at CORC and with the great experiences and personal achievements gained by all of our student participants. The feedback recieved from our tented village residentials only goes to re-enforce our commitment to improving the life experiences and life skills of the young people who attend our camps. Preparation for adult life begins at an early age and learning whilst having fun in the outdoors is a sure-fire way of accelerating this learning curve.
