Highside Farm

As evening wears on, all that can be heard from Highside Farm’s tiny campsite, on the lower reaches of Lune Moor, is the sporadic bleating of sheep far away across the valley. As the light fades into night, our woolly friends fall silent and the sense of tranquility is complete.

There’s nothing rushed about Highside Farm. Many of the farm buildings date back to the 16th century or earlier, and while new owners, Mark and Helen Tully, haven’t turned the clock back quite that far, there’s a real sense that camping here is like something from times of old.

The main thing that makes Highside Farm so different is the quarter-of-an-acre size, which gives the sense you are lodging in a farmer’s garden rather than at an established camping site. The sloping meadow, without electrical hook ups and only one hardstanding, generally attracts tents over caravans and there are never more than nine or ten campers allowed here at any one time. It’s a campsite in miniature; something only accentuated by the way the edge of the meadow drops away rather dramatically, leaving nothing between you and the open hills of the North Pennines.

The Pennine Way, perhaps understandably, rises near here by a rather less precipitous route and heads around the back of the farm, passing just half a mile away. It can be followed west – taking in fine views as your approach Harter Fell – to Grassholme Reservoir where a waterside trail leads you back in the direction of the campsite