Cedar Hollow Dorset
Before you arrive
There is no reception and no key to collect. Read this once before you set off and the rest of the stay takes care of itself.
- Dorset
- Plan your stay
- Before you arrive
- Check in
- From 4pm, self check-in
- Check out
- By 10am
- Changeover days
- Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
- Walk from the car
- About five minutes, downhill
- Early arrival
- Not possible — but there is seating under the parachute shelter at the top
Bring this
- Food, drink and milk
- Pizza toppings and tomato sauce — the flour is here
- Clothes for walking down the hill
- Warmer clothes for sitting out after dark
- Crocs or slippers for the deck
- A torch, if you like wandering off the path
- Enough mobile data, if you must be reachable
Leave this at home
- Towels, bathrobes, bed linen, tea towels, oven cloths
- Pots, pans, crockery, cutlery, glasses, a kettle
- Salt, pepper, olive oil, sugar, flour, tea, coffee
- Shampoo, conditioner, body wash
- Logs, kindling, firelighters
- Candles — we supply enclosed lanterns
Tea lights or unguarded candles. A timber building in a wood is not the place to negotiate on this. There are safety lanterns in every treehouse.
Speakers or music systems. Sound carries a very long way through a wood at night.
Drones. Strictly not, at any time, anywhere on the site.
Stilettos. The boardwalks will win.
Dogs and children. Two adults only, 18 and over.
Packing for the walk
It is five minutes downhill from the car park on woodland paths and boardwalks. Small hard wheels do not enjoy this; a holdall or a rucksack does. Bring what you need for the stay and leave the rest in the car — you can always walk back up for it.
If you are travelling by train, remember that the nearest shop is two miles from the woods and you will need a pre-booked taxi in both directions. Ordering ahead is much easier than solving it on arrival.
Ordering ahead
The woodland shop will take an order up to the day before you arrive. Frozen pizza dough is put in your fridge to defrost on the morning of arrival; everything else is waiting for you inside.
The shop also runs as an honesty cupboard throughout your stay — cider, fizz, dough, extra kindling and firelighters — paid for through the shop website whenever suits you.
Arriving
- Park along the hedge at the top. There is a 13-amp trickle charge point for electric cars; no fast charging, as the village supply will not take it.
- Walk through the small wooden pedestrian gate on the left and follow the path downhill. Do not drive the track across the meadow.
- At the camp centre, move the slate tab with your treehouse name on the in/out board across to ‘in’.
- Note the duty phone number posted below the board — it can change during a stay.
- Follow the signs to your treehouse. It is unlocked with the key inside. The Woodsman’s door opens on a wheel, turned anticlockwise; Dazzle and Pinwheel have ordinary handles.
We cannot light it before you arrive, so it will be laid but cold. The treehouses are very well insulated and come up to temperature quickly. Instructions are in the guest folder and on this site.
What you might hear
We can promise you quiet from us. We cannot promise silence, and it seems fairer to say so now than to have you wonder at 6am.
- Owls, foxes, deer and a very great deal of birdsong
- Dairy farming either side of the boundary: herding for milking, machinery, silage and hedge cutting, and occasionally muck spreading
- Beaters working the neighbouring fields on a handful of winter Tuesdays. No guns in the woods, ever
- A village party or a wedding, once in a while
- The railway at the bottom of the valley, depending on wind and leaf cover
Then it is yours
Nobody will contact you during your stay unless we have to. If you do not hear from us, all is well.