I will never stop being grateful for the opportunities which have come our way since I started this blog and my Instagram account. Last weekend, we were lucky enough to be invited by cottages.com to stay at The Hemmel, a stunning barn conversion in the Northumbrian countryside. It’s been about 5 years since we last visited this part of Northumberland and we absolutely loved it – we definitely won’t be leaving it another 5 years before returning.
We arrived at The Hemmel on Friday evening after a longer than it should have been drive up (the A1M was closed, and everyone was taking the same back roads diversion!). The stress of the journey instantly disappeared as soon as we stepped through the door though: the open plan living/dining/kitchen is absolutely enormous, beautifully decorated and has floor to ceiling windows looking out over the surrounding countryside.
The Hemmel sleeps 6 in three spacious, en-suite bedrooms (two double, one twin), making it perfect for families, gatherings of friends, or even just dog owners who like a bit more space – two dogs are welcome free of charge. There are two other cottages on the site, The Byres and The Stable, which sleep 6 and 4 respectively – so if you wanted to book for a large family gathering, you could book them all together.
Spaciousness isn’t limited to inside either. We had a large, enclosed driveway which had a nice patio area which would be perfect for sitting out in during warmer weather. There’s even an EV charging point! We spent the evening chilling and playing with the fancy ovens (which are so posh they have a dedicated pizza setting), before settling down to plan what we’d get up to over the weekend.
Our first morning dawned crisp, cold and with an absolutely stunning blue sky. One of the reasons that I’d chosen The Hemmel out of the choice of holiday cottages we were given was its fantastic location for walking – and on Saturday we hopped in the car and were at the start of Tarset Bastle Trail in less than 10 minutes.
The Sidwood section of the trail was closed due to storm damage, so we did the ~3 mile circular route from the parking area at Black Middens up to the ruins at Bog Head. Parking was free in the small car park, and we set off down a quiet road for the first section of the walk before picking up a forest road. Shortly after joining the track we peeled off onto a grassy trail – I was glad it was so cold as I think it would have been pretty muddy if the ground wasn’t frozen!
The trail winds its way past the ruins of two bastle houses, little more than piles of stone now, and along a river which the dogs enjoyed having a quick splash in (despite the cold!). Shortly after passing the second bastle, we looped back through the woods to join the forest road we’d started the walk on further down. This was great for being able to let the dogs off while still keeping them in sight – although we didn’t see a single other person on the whole walk!
This is a great option for dog walking, being quiet, short enough to do in a morning or afternoon, stile free and livestock free (although I can’t promise you won’t come across deer or other wildlife). While there is a short road section at the start and end, this is very quiet and we only saw a few cars. Before setting off to our next stop of the day, we took a few minutes to explore Black Middens – which is much more complete than the other ruins, and which has lovely views over the surrounding countryside.
With plenty of daylight left, but not feeling quite energetic enough to do two walks in one day, we decided to pay a visit to Hadrian’s Wall – it feels like an obligatory requirement for staying in this part of Northumberland. And with our shiny new English Heritage membership, there were so many sites for us to choose from. In the end we decided to pay a visit to Chesters Roman Fort – somewhere we’d not been before, which we picked as it was only a half hour drive from where we were at Black Middens (less from The Hemmel) and which Tripadvisor reviews had down as being very dog friendly.
When we arrived, the dogs were immediately greeted with a biscuit at the front desk (so a big tick from Merry and Coal!). Dogs are welcome throughout the site, just not in the museum, which is quite small and which we took turns to pop in and have a look at. The main draw here is the Roman baths, which are one of the best preserved in Britain. It was quite weird to be able to walk through rooms with walls and doorways which were built two thousand years ago!
I’m not sure what I was expecting from our visit, but we really enjoyed it. Sometimes I find trips to historical sites a bit of a struggle if the information boards don’t grab my attention, but here they are plentiful and do a great job of bringing Chesters to life. The site is quite similar to Housesteads, with plenty to look at but more spread out, which actually worked very well for us with the dogs as it often meant we were the only people investigating the little area we were in. Another reason to visit here instead of Housesteads is that I think it’s generally much quieter – there were only five or six other cars in the car park when we arrived, whereas when we drove past Housesteads on our way home it was full!
At the end of our visit we stopped off in the tea room for lunch. The dogs were treated to another biscuit (lucky boys) while I had the soup of the day and a bread roll, despite being very tempted by the delicious looking cakes on offer. Another thing which I rarely comment on, but will here, is how friendly all of the staff and volunteers were – we really couldn’t have been made more welcome, despite having the dogs with us.
Happily exhausted, and wondering why it had taken us so long to get back up to this part of Northumberland, we drove back to The Hemmel for an afternoon of Six Nations and hot chocolate. Being far too lazy to cook anything more complicated than a co-op pizza on a weekend away, we decided to treat ourselves to a takeaway from The Boe Rigg. This cracking bar/cafe/takeaway was just a two minute drive from where we were staying, and serves an eclectic mix of cuisine – Sam had a cheese burger and a kebab, while I had a chicken chow mein. We were mildly heartbroken when we checked their website and saw that they only serve food Thursday-Saturday!
Sunday was our last full day and we were determined to make the most of it. Originally, we had planned to return to Deadwater Fell in Kielder Forest, and to follow the walking route rather than the (much longer) cycling route which we’d accidentally picked up last time! Unfortunately though there’s currently forestry work going on in this area and the trail is closed, so we instead settled for doing the 4 mile out-and-back Skyspace Walk up to Kielder Observatory.
We parked at Kielder Castle car park (£5 all day) and made our way to the start of the trail. We walked straight past the sign saying that the first part of the walk was diverted due to storm damage, and spent twenty minutes or so clambering over increasingly large fallen trees, before we back tracked and saw a diversion notice. Whoops!
The diversion takes you along the road to The Birches car park, which you can use as an alternative start point to cut out the road walking and which is also free to park in. We then picked up the main forest road which runs up to the observatory, following it steadily uphill all the way to the top. While it is a fairly long climb, it’s not overly steep and we both enjoyed it very much. Occasional glimpses of Deadwater Fell through the trees and a lovely view over the forest and Kielder Water from the top made for a lovely, stile free walk. We were able to have the dogs off lead the entire time too which was wonderful!
After a (much faster) walk back down the hill to the car, we popped over to Bellingham to get some lunch at the Rocky Road cafe. While it’s not dog friendly inside, you can choose to sit outside, or take your food to go. We opted for the latter option, as just as we arrived it started raining – not outside eating weather! We both went for brie and cranberry paninis which were extremely tasty and which I would highly recommend if you’re ever in Bellingham at lunch time.
With the rain setting in we drove back to The Hemmel for a cosy evening in (with more co-op pizzas). I feel like the fantastic kitchen facilities were wasted on us, as I’m pretty sure you could easily cook a full Christmas dinner there with no issues! All too soon it was Monday morning and we were packing up the car for the drive home.
Of course, we didn’t go straight home. Being only a 90 minute drive meant that we had time to squeeze in one last walk before heading back. On our last visit to this part of Northumberland we’d walked up to the pretty waterfall at Hareshaw Linn, and we were long overdue a return visit. Another cracking walk just 10 minutes away from the Hemmel – it really is in a fabulous location!
This three mile out-and-back walk starts from a small National Park car park opposite the garage in Bellingham. When we arrived at 9.30am we were able to get parked with no problems, but by the time we got back an hour and a half later it was full up (despite it being a Monday in February), so it’s worth keeping this in mind if you do decide to visit.
The route itself is very straight forward, being stile free and mostly up a gradual incline, although there are quite a few rocky/uneven sections as well as some steps. There are benches scattered along the path though if you need a sit down!
One of the things I love about this walk (and others like it) is that you cross several bridges back and forth over the river to get to the falls – it just feels like more of an adventure to me, I don’t know why. The falls themselves are beautiful, although they weren’t thundering quite as much as they were on our last visit.
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. The Hemmel is a great choice if you’re looking to take your dogs on holiday with you. Spacious enough for post-walk zoomies without knocking anything over, easy to clean wooden floors, and a securely enclosed garden (although smaller dogs might be able to squeeze through the slats on the gate) ticks all the boxes we look for in a dog friendly stay. The quiet location meant that nothing triggered Merry’s barking, and it was also an ideal base for all of the places we wanted to visit – nowhere we went was more than a 20 minute drive away. A huge thank you again to cottages.com and the owners for having us to stay!
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