www.theenglishcaravancompany.com
We are Richard and Lyn, we are…… The English Caravan Company.
We’ve both been in the construction and property maintenance world for more years than we care to remember. Collectively we have more than 50 years of experience in carpentry and joinery, we love working with wood.
We wanted to move out of the general construction world and be back at a workbench in our own joinery shop, where we could use our experience and skills to build something different, something special, something unique.
An idea was born, to build a Teardrop Toyhauler caravan. A caravan that can also be used to carry a motorbike, or a jet ski or similar sized ‘toys’.
It took some time to come up with the style and shape we liked and eventually created and produced drawings for four different models. Three Teardrop drop shaped but of different sizes and the fourth of a unique and individual style.
The Classic Teardrop, the smallest, is a two berth Teardrop caravan.
The Toyhauler, another Teardrop shape caravan but larger and designed to carry a motorbike or similar and sleep two or possibly three.
The Classic, a full size caravan, either a two berth or four berth. Again, Teardrop styled and with a huge panoramic skylight roof panel.
And then there’s the fourth, the flagship and the largest, a four berth model.
Although the initial idea was to build the Toyhauler, it became clear it would be better to start with the Classic, the smallest. We needed to learn more about specific materials and suppliers so thought it better to start small.
No sooner had we finished the Classic then we had a call from Granada TV asking if they could visit us in the workshop as they would like to take a closer look at our first Teardrop caravan. From that first meeting they said they wanted to use our Classic Teardrop in a new series TV called Ade in Britain which was to be presented by Ade Edmondson. We were so excited!
They had the caravan for around 4 months, the series was a great success. So much so they asked to use the Teardrop for a second series and had it for around 5 months as the second series was longer.
We were then invited to be part of the Crabbies TV advertising campaign where our Teardrop was used in their spring promotion TV adverts.
On stage with the Alan Titchmarsh show was our next venture, filmed at the south bank TV studios.
We then joined up with Good Morning TV with Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen and were filmed in a beautiful park in Reading over two days but this time using the Toyhauler.
We were then on live TV with Sunday Brunch on channel 4 with the Classic Teardrop.
A wonderful couple then approached us to ask if we could build them a Classic Teardrop and fit/build in a genuine and authentic clay wood burning pizza oven. This was quite a challenge. It all worked out beautifully and went on to win Best Looking Mobiler at the British Street Food Awards in Sept 2013.
We have also been asked and have converted a vintage caravan into a catering caravan.
Since then we have carried out various refurbishments on many classic English caravans.
Which is where we are now.
We still build new Teardrop caravans to order, building them to customers own specifications and colours. Along side this work we repair, refurbish and restore classic and vintage English caravans.
This blog will be about and our life and passion working with caravans, our experiences and about the wonderful people we have met along the way.
This will be ‘thestarksnaked’ blog, the rough and the smooth, the fun and the pressures. The challenges and the lessons we have learnt and continue to learn as we live, sleep and breathe this colourful and exciting world of caravans and their owners.
The Starks Naked Blog 