"In 1936, Captain Victor Cazalet MP lent an area of his estate at Sissinghurst in Kent to the Centre for a camping site. It incuded a wood surrounding a lake and a disused oast-house.

Margaret Nash recalls:

A Camping Club was formed of which my father was Secretary and a band of members worked down there each weekend making it habitable for families to spend some time in the country. The tow 'roundles' became 'ladies' and 'gents' dormitories and there was a communal room with tables, chairs, cupboards for food and several gas cooking hobs. Also through the woods was a lake where we could swim and there was a rowing boat too. We had lovely weekends there staying in the Oast House but for our two week holiday we took a large family tent and camped in style. We were lucky enough to have a car but others came on motor bikes, some with sidecars and others cycled all the way. In fact it was at the camp that John and I first met. He had cycled down with a couple who had a tandem, but being a bit of a 'loner' my mother felt sorry for him and took him under her wing and suggested he had his meals with us.

Captain Cazalet was killed during the war and, when the Centre reopened, the camp was no longer available. However, some families began to spend their Sundays at the Centre farm at Oakley House, which was easily reached by train and bus from Peckham. Soon a camping club had formed and space was found on the pastures for tents, which were stored when not in use, with the members' other camping equipment in a large hut the RAF had built for a gymnasium, the exposed rafters being useful for hanging the tents to dry. Twenty families might be camping there at a weekend, and during the summer holidays, mothers would spend a month there with their children, while fathers came at weekends, or, more often, commuted from the camp. 'We used to do work on the farm,' Harry Coring said. 'My son drove a tractor when he was ten, and the children use to watch the calves being born.'

(Taken from 'Being Me and Also Us' by Alison Stallibrass) see publications

After the Centre closed, one of the staff, Mary Langham (see people), rented Oakley House and members continued to camp there.