Dower House Touring Park
Norfolk
Family touring park with a heated pool, on the Thetford Forest fringe near the Norfolk border
About Dower House Touring Park
Dower House Touring Park lies at East Harling, just over the Norfolk border on the edge of Thetford Forest, around 18 miles and a 25-minute drive north of Bury St Edmunds. It is a long-established, family-oriented park open from late March to the end of September, with pitches for touring caravans, motorhomes and tents, plus a handful of shepherd's huts for couples who want a fixed roof.
The park is built for a proper family holiday rather than a single overnight stop: a free, heated outdoor swimming pool runs through the summer season, and there is an on-site pub with a restaurant, pool room and board games for evenings. Children are well catered for with a play area built around log climbing equipment, a badminton and volleyball net, and goalposts for football, while a well-stocked shop and information centre cover most essentials without a drive into town. Dogs are welcome throughout, with woodland walks straight from the park.
Given its position on the fringe of Thetford Forest, Dower House works equally well as a base for exploring the forest's cycling and walking trails as it does for day trips into Bury St Edmunds or across into Norfolk towards Thetford itself. Twenty-four-hour wardens are on site, and the park operates its own online booking system, with a deposit required to secure a pitch and full payment due three weeks before arrival. Twenty-four-hour wardens and a genuinely long operating season make it a reliable choice for family holidays through the spring, summer and early autumn, and the surrounding lanes around East Harling offer quieter cycling routes away from the main forest trails for those wanting an easy pedal rather than serious off-road riding.