Cedar Hollow Dorset

Guest information

Everything common to all three treehouses. For the bits that differ — the sauna, the cargo net, the dressing room — see your own treehouse manual at the end.

A printed copy of all this is in the guest folder inside your treehouse, with QR codes to short films for the stove and the pizza oven.

The log burner

  1. Open the air intake fully, and check the airflow slide behind the door is fully open too.
  2. Build a Jenga-like stacked square of kindling, four or five layers high, at the back of the chamber.
  3. Drop a lit firelighter into the hole in the middle, close the door, and let it burn down to embers.
  4. Add more kindling and small logs in a tipi, split side facing down.
  5. Once the starter logs have mostly gone, add larger logs.
  6. When the flames are established, close the air intake down by a notch or two.

The cast iron acts as a heat sink, so the treehouse goes on getting warmer for a while after the fire dies back. Control the burn rate with the air intake rather than by adding more wood — overloading it blackens the glass and does not make it hotter.

Never

Never leave the stove unattended while it is lit. Never run it with the door open. Never dry clothes or towels on or near it. It gets extremely hot on the top and sides — use an oven cloth.

The hot tub

Your tub is left empty and clean, and you fill it with fresh hot water just before you want it. Start with plenty of hot water — the metal takes a good deal of the heat out of the first fill — and allow time for both filling and warming.

Put the cover back on between uses, or the oak will fill it with twigs and leaves within the hour.

Water

Mains throughout, and perfectly good to drink. Hot water is heated on demand, so it takes a couple of minutes to come through — after that there is as much as you want.

The one thing

Never put wet wipes down the loo. They do not degrade and they block the biodigester, which is an unhappy afternoon for everyone.

Logs and kindling

Your log basket is filled before you arrive. When it runs low, help yourself from the log store — refills are free to guests, and there is no need to ask.

Extra kindling and firelighters are in the honesty shop at the camp centre if you get through yours.

Fire, outside

  • Barbecue and fire pit: charcoal or logs.
  • Pizza oven and log stove: logs only.
  • Never move the barbecue or fire pit off its metal safety disc.
  • Never leave any fire unattended.
  • Leave the embers and ash for us — we clear them on changeover.

Food and squirrels

Store food inside. The squirrels here are well fed, entirely unafraid and extremely quick, and an unattended loaf on the deck lasts about ninety seconds.

Waste and recycling

Bins are under the steps at ground level. West Dorset sorts as follows:

  • Glass — bottles and jars, metal lids on. No cans.
  • Recycling — paper, cardboard, tins, hard plastic trays and bottles.
  • Food waste — fruit, vegetables and peelings, meat, fish and bones, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells, cooked and uncooked. No plastic bags.
  • General waste — plastic film, polystyrene, plastic bags, crisp packets, and broken glass wrapped in paper or card.

Noise

No music and no amplified sound, please, and mobiles on silent. Sound travels a very long way through a wood at night, and the other two treehouses are closer than they look.

We ask guests who ignore this to leave, without a refund. It has happened twice in fifteen years and we would rather it stayed that way.

If something is wrong

Text or call the duty phone. The number is posted below the in/out board and can change during a stay, so check it when you arrive. Messages left overnight between 10pm and 8am are perfectly fine — we would much rather know.

Leaving

Please be out by 10am. There is no cleaning to do and no stripping of beds — leave the ash, leave the embers, leave the washing-up done and that is plenty.

Move your tag on the in/out board to ‘departed’ on your way past. Someone is usually about by the boards before 10am on a changeover day if you want to say goodbye.

Your treehouse

The Woodsman’s

The revolving burner, the rooftop sauna and hot tub, the copper bath, the tree shower and the slide.

Dazzle

The stove, the circular hot tub, the shower room and the cargo net over the stream.

Pinwheel

The stove, the square hot tub, the dressing room and the four-window blackout.

And the pizza oven

Forty-five minutes to a proper ember bed, and then a pizza every ninety seconds.

Lighting the pizza oven Read the FAQ

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