A Country Park on the Welsh borderlands is attracting a new type of visitor that’s looking for pristine night skies devoid of light pollution.
‘The Retreat’ at Rockbridge is a new development of affordable holiday lodges and caravans set in breathtaking countryside on the Herefordshire/Powys border.
Its superb location – an unspoilt valley surrounded by rolling Radnorshire hills abundant with wildlife – would previously have been enough to create interest, but it appears that holiday home buyers have a new expectation for their rural idyll. Dark Skies are now high on the tick box agenda!
Rockbridge Country Holiday Park is situated just outside the town of Presteigne, which in 2024 became the first community in Wales to be designated an International Dark Sky Community by DarkSky International.
It’s attracted great interest, drawing in people wanting to escape the bright lights of towns and cities. The area’s Dark Skies Community Leader, Leigh-Harling Bowen says it was a long hard slog to achieve such status.
“The Presteigne & Norton community has worked tenaciously over the last six years to highlight the benefits of becoming a dark sky community. ‘The Retreat’ at Rockbridge will now be able to offer visitors the opportunity to see unparalleled views of the dark, clear, unpolluted skies of Mid Wales.”
Discover Parks owners, Glenn & Hannah Jones, have invested in reducing light pollution and sky-glow from the park by installing well designed, low level lighting. They’ve also created a transparent viewing dome, complete with professional telescopes and have plans to educate visitors on how to ‘stargaze in style’ with the help of the local Marches Astronomy Group.
“The development’s taken longer than we would have liked, but in hindsight it’s given us time to create something that complements the unique landscape which surrounds the park, and we’re bowled over by the interest so far,” says Glenn. “We have been extremely careful not to create light pollution in an area that’s been awarded for its dedication to maintaining unpolluted night skies, and that, we feel, is being greatly appreciated.”
Rockbridge Country Holiday Park is designed to allow visitors – made up of people with touring caravans and motorhomes, campers, those staying in self-catering accommodation on the park, or people who are investing in holiday homes on the new Retreat development – to make the most of its superb location realising that the vast dark skies and stunning untouched countryside on the Welsh/English borderlands is not something the average person gets the chance to experience.
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