Alstonefield Camping Barn

Spend the weekend in a barn? Don’t mind if I do.
It was a little late in the day when my friends and I put together our annual camping trip and before we knew it we were stuck with only the first weekend in September. Camping in September? Well it’s worth a try, we’ll just need plenty of warm stuff and a strong constitution won’t we? It was then that I remembered something from back in my Girl Guiding days — you can camp in barns!
Camping barns are pretty much just tents made out of stone, with a roof, with a flushing toilet and a sink if you’re lucky (and yes, Alstonefield is a lucky barn). The ground floor of this one has one big communal room with wooden picnic benches and a cooking platform and the whole upstairs is for sleeping. No beds, just a wooden platform. Luxury it is not, but utterly beautiful, rustic, quiet and homely (in its way) it sure is. The barn is literally in the middle of nowhere (though there is still some phone signal), with nothing much around for miles barring the farmhouse at the other end of the dirt track and the myriad sheep and cows.
There’s no electricity but plenty of nooks and crannies for candles. We were mildly unsettled when we arrived mid-​afternoon and could already see our breath on the autumnal air, but this gave way in the evening probably through a combination of the candles, the humans, bringing the barbecue inside and the ever present and loving beer jacket. It wasn’t half as cold as we thought it’d be — especially for a clear night. We had plenty of space to cook, eat, drink, dance, sing and shout.
Camping barns are a bit of a revelation for me. Warmer and (slightly) more comfortable than camping, with no crouching, no damp, no trekking to the toilet block, no falling over guy ropes, no packing away the canvas in the rain, no neighbours. but still with all the good stuff, the great outdoors, the roughing it, the hanging out with your mates.
You can rent the whole of Alstonefield for £84 for the night — it fits 12 people (it’s £7 each). What a way to spend a weekend! Just bring your woollens in case.