The diary
Drag across the nights you want.
Nights already taken are ruled out and a stay cannot run through one, so anything you can paint is genuinely free. Rates change with the season and are charged per night, not per week.
Drag from the night you arrive to the last night you stay. On a phone, tap the first night and then the last. With a keyboard, use the arrow keys and press Enter twice; Escape starts again.
This is the diary as a plain table. Nights marked taken are already booked. To work out a price, turn JavaScript on or email us and we will do it for you.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
What you get
Four rooms and a lot of weather.
Larch outside, birch ply in. One long room with the stove and the window at the end of it, a double and a twin off the corridor, a bathroom with a proper bath, and a kitchen with everything you need to cook a real meal rather than reheat one.
There is no television. There is a wood store, a shelf of paperbacks left behind by fifteen years of guests, and a radio that gets Radio 4 if you stand it on the windowsill. The wifi is fast, because the alternative was answering the phone about it.
- BedsOne double, one twin
- BathroomBath, shower over, hot water always
- HeatingWood stove, underfloor throughout
- KitchenOven, hob, fridge, dishwasher
- OutsideDeck, fire pit, two acres, no fence
- DogsOne, £15 a stay
- WifiStarlink, 90–150 Mbps
- ParkingTwo cars, on gravel
The year
Twelve months, honestly described.
Rates follow the light rather than the school holidays. If you want the valley to yourself, come in February and bring a coat.
| Month | Rate | What it is like |
|---|---|---|
| January | £120 | Dark by four. Ice on the track some mornings. The stove earns its keep. |
| February | £120 | Quietest month of the year. Snowdrops in the beck bank by the end of it. |
| March | £135 | Lambs in the next field. Wind. First proper walking weather. |
| April | £150 | Curlews back on the moor. Light until eight. Still cold at night. |
| May | £165 | The best month and we will not pretend otherwise. Bluebells in the plantation. |
| June | £175 | Barely dark at all. Midges after rain, so bring something for them. |
| July | £185 | Busy. Book early. Swimming in the burn is possible if you are brave. |
| August | £185 | Heather turns the moor purple in the third week. Our favourite photograph every year. |
| September | £165 | Long light, no midges, empty paths. Quietly the best value here. |
| October | £150 | Larch turns gold. Stag roar carries down the valley at dusk. |
| November | £125 | Wet. Genuinely dark skies: Kielder is a dark sky park and this is the month for it. |
| December | £140 | Christmas week goes in January and never comes back. |
The burn is forty paces from the deck and you will hear it all night.
Practical
Getting here, and what to expect when you do.
The journey
Newcastle is an hour and ten minutes, Edinburgh an hour and fifty. The last three quarters of a mile is our own track: unmade, potholed, fine in any normal car but slow. In hard frost we will meet you at the road end in the Land Rover if you ask.
Nearest station is Hexham, forty minutes away, and we can collect for £30 each way if you let us know a week out.
Supplies
The Co-op in Bellingham is eleven miles and shuts at eight. The Redesdale Arms does food until nine and is the only thing open on a Sunday night for twenty miles, so plan accordingly.
We leave milk, bread, butter, eggs, coffee and a basket of kindling. Everything else is on you.
House rules
No parties, no extra people staying over, no fireworks. The fire pit is fine except when the moor is tinder dry, and we will tell you if it is.
Cancel more than four weeks out and you get everything back. Inside four weeks we refund whatever we manage to re-let.
Who you are emailing
Kate and Dan Rutherford. We built Hollowbeck in 2011 out of larch off our own hill, and we have looked after it ourselves ever since. There is no agency and no management company: if something is wrong, one of us drives up and fixes it.