In a recent blog post, I mentioned that I had spent a weekend at an all-inclusive holiday resort near Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex. It was actually one of two resorts run by Potters Resorts, the other being located at Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk.
Sue and I stayed in the newest of the two, Potters Five Lakes Resort. It had been built in 1974 as the Manifold Golf Club, and extended in 1995 by the addition of a 114-room hotel as well as a new golf course and spa. It was also renamed Five Lakes Resort and was subsequently bought by Potters Resorts in 2021.
Our room was on the second floor of the main building and was easily as good – if not better – than many of the cabins we have stayed in on cruise ships .... but with much more space! (It was about 200% bigger than a balcony cabin on most cruise ships.) The food was excellent – and there was lots of it – and the entertainment was certainly on a par with what we have seen on a cruise. In fact, Sue and I agreed that staying at Five Lakes was like being on a cruise ship that didn't move.
There are a large range of activities available for patrons to experience. Anyone who wanted to play golf did have to pay a reduced green fee but almost everything else was free. This included rally karts, virtual reality headsets, boating, badminton, tennis, pickleball, table tennis, indoor curling, shuffleboard, laser clay pigeon shooting, air rifle shooting, archery, a 9-hole par-3 golf course, bowls, disc golf, snooker, pool, darts, and board games. There is also an onsite fully-equipped gym and a spa where you can get massages or use the sauna or steam room.
It is interesting to note that the company that is now Potters Resorts was set up in 1920 by Herbert Potter, a solicitor's clerk. He used money that he had won in a competition run by the long-defunct SUNDAY CHRONICLE newspaper to buy land in Hemsby (which is eight miles north of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk) where he set up the first permanent holiday camp in the United Kingdom with hutted accommodation. This proved to be very popular, and in 1924 it was moved to Hopton-on-Sea, six miles to the south of Great Yarmouth. It moved to a site closer to the seaside in 1933, and that remains the location of the company's headquarters and the site of its other resort.
It is often thought that Sir Billy Butlin built the first UK holiday camp with permanent buildings at Skegness, Lincolnshire, in 1936, but this is untrue. For example, Harry Warner had opened his first holiday camp at Hayling Island, Hampshire, in 1931, and by the start of the Second World War he had opened three more. During the Second World War, many of the holiday camps were taken over by the government for use as training or rest camps for military personnel.
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