High Lodge Leisure
Home to an array of facilities including luxury lodges, shooting, fishing, restaurant and clubhouse with function facilities
Industry: Sporting, Leisure and Hospitality
Location: Darsham, Suffolk
Rebrand, design and rebuild
MULTI
Event location
CONTEMPORARY
Site design
BESPOKE
EVENTS CALENDAR
ONLINE BOOKING
via external engine
The Challenge
High Lodge approached Rade to design and develop a new content-managed website that would accurately reflect the breadth of its business. With a diverse range of activities and services, the project required careful planning to ensure each area was clearly represented and easy for visitors to explore.
The website needed to effectively promote the business’s holiday lodges, fishing, archery, food and shooting facilities, while maintaining a cohesive and engaging user experience throughout.
Particular emphasis was placed on showcasing shooting, for which High Lodge is best known, while ensuring the full range of experiences and accommodation options were equally accessible and appealing to prospective customers.
Our Solution
The project was delivered in two phases, beginning with the introduction of a new identity and website design. A clean, image-led layout was created to showcase High Lodge’s extensive photography, while simplifying the site architecture around its core business areas.
Navigation was split into two sections, with primary services positioned beneath the header and secondary information, including Contact, About the Venue and Opening Times, located in a smaller top panel. The responsive mobile experience follows the same structure, with additional navigation contained within the hamburger menu.
Development was completed using the Umbraco CMS, supported by a bespoke events module.
The Result
The new website provides High Lodge with a clearer, more intuitive digital presence that better reflects the breadth of its offering. The simplified navigation makes key information easier to find, while the image-led design puts the venue and its activities at the forefront of the user experience.
Built using Umbraco, the website also gives the High Lodge team straightforward tools to manage and update content themselves, reducing ongoing reliance on external support and delivering project cost savings through in-house content input. The bespoke events module enables flexible promotion of events and shooting competition results, with filterable listings making information easy to access.
Initial feedback indicates increased enquiries and positive user responses.
“We’re delighted with our website…”
Jane Bidwell, Director and General Manager
High Lodge Leisure
Suffolk's Premier Sporting, Leisure and Hospitality Venue
The Brief
The High Lodge directors approached Rade as they required the design and development of a new content managed website. The diverse nature of the business meant that careful thought was needed to ensure good representation of all the activities on offer by the business, including the promotion of holiday lodges, fishing, archery, food and shooting, for which the business is best known.
Project Scope
The project was split into two phases. Stage one was the incorporation of a new identity and creation of a new website design. A clean layout allows their amazing range of pictures to do most of the talking.
A key objective was to simplify the site architecture and reduce the main navigation to represent the main business areas. This was achieved by splitting the navigation into two sections – a main navigation bar that occupies a conventional location below the main header and a second smaller navigation panel at the top of the header for general pages; Contact, About the Venue and Opening Times. Mobile treatment is similar, with the exception that the additional navigation elements are moved to sit within the customary hamburger menu.
With the design agreed, the final stage was development. The site was built using the open-source Umbraco CMS. With a comprehensive set of easy-to-use admin management tools and robust .NET and SQL technology, Umbraco offered the perfect solution and the High Lodge team quickly got to grips with making site changes, including the initial input of a large proportion of the content, representing a cost saving on the overall project.
As part of the development, a custom events module was created to allow for events to be posted in several categories as well as results for shooting competitions to be posted after the event, all accessed via a filterable event listing.
Initial feedback on the site performance, suggests improvements in enquiry numbers and positive feedback.
Profile
Created over 30 years ago by 14 times FITASC Sporting World, European and British Champion, John Bidwell, High Lodge is home to an array of facilities including luxury lodges, shooting, fishing, restaurant and clubhouse with function facilities.