Venue
The Rock of the Woods festival will take place on the grounds of the old Manager's House at Bamberton. This beautiful house and the orchard around it are nestled in a clearing in the woods high above Saanich Inlet.
The camping grounds offer stunning views, overlooking Saanich Peninsula, the Gulf Islands and beyond to Mt Baker.
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Directions
Driving from Victoria
Head north down the Trans-Canada Hwy till the Mill Bay turnoff, take a right and drive straight down (past the Bamberton Provincal Campground) Trowsse Road till you are welcomed by festival greetors.
Driving from Nanaimo/Duncan/Mill Bay
Head south down the Trans-Canada Hwy till the Mill Bay turnoff, take a right at Mill Bay Road, turn off and head down the road and take a right at Trowsse Road drive past the Bamberton Provincal Campground till you are welcomed by festival greetors.
History of Bamberton
Circa 1912, a large area of land north of Mill Bay along Saanich Inlet became home to a company town and a cement factory run by the Portland Cement Company of London, England and their Manager, Mr H.K.G. Bamber, who put his name onto the company town of 'Bamberton'.
For over 60 years, Bamberton provided the cement for virtually all the nation-building projects of the Pacific Northwest: The Lion's Gate Bridge, the Deas Island Tunnel, the aluminum plant in Kitimat, hydroelectric dams, mining operations and airports throughout BC. The Bamberton company town was home to thousands of workers and their families who lived in the village over the years.
 
In 1980, the property's ownership group shifted their focus of operations to Delta, BC, and Bamberton, as a factory and as a town, ceased to be. For the next two decades, it crumbled into a ghost town, & much of the property stood as a ruined, contaminated cement plant that no one wanted to clean up.
In 2005, the property was purchased by new investors and the old cement factory was demolished and cleaned up, in what was the largest privately-funded environmental remediation project in BC. A few of the original buildings do still stand today, including the Manager's house, the host site of the Rock of the Woods festival.
Bamberton Campgound: Nearby Bamberton Park was donated to the province by the British Columbia Cement Company in 1959. The park and campground is adjacent to the privately-held Bamberton Lands.
For lots more information about the history of the Bamberton site, cement factory and the old company town, visit the Bamberton Historical Society web site.
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