Bell tent users, have they stood the test of time

[caerlaverock]

Mostly nosiness tbh I remember loads of you buying them a few years back and yet I never see them out and about. Are they practical as well as nice to look at?

We have had ours over a year and we use it loads and when we are at home it's up in the garden. We have not had any problems yet. I will never buy another type of tent again, I just love the space inside and the lovely light through the canvas. It's so easy to put up and take down, I do it on my own and takes about 20ish minutes including 4m tarp and bunting. Will be even better when we get a stove for it.

Had ours 2 years now, still going strong. It does get stained easily by bird poo (even when I get it off asap, it leaves a mark) but is otherwise in good condition.

Like Mel, I love the light and space and ease of taking it up/putting it down again.

The site we were at this weekend had 5 of them including ours, so I'd say they were still popular!

Aren't they a pita to dry?

A bit of hijack but Mel tell me more about your tarp. Is it an awning? We're looking for some kind of awning/tarp for our bell tent but don't really like the malo or wing type awning. Or at least I can't really see how they offer much shelter/shade.

It's similar to the Malu tarp but I attach the middle of one side to the spike on the door pole and put a single pole at the other end of the tarp so it creates a roof shape (does that make any sense?) so it's a tunnel/porch for the bell tent door. I then put a windbreak on either side of this so it's an enclosed tunnel. I am not sure how many guy holes the Malu has but the tarp I bought from eBay has 8 loops. I will have a go at adding a photo I took last weekend.

I can't manage to do it from my iPad, there is a photo of the tent wing on my profile and I used the same pole, so imagine the tarp is square and the pole is in the same place and the sides dropped towards the windbreaks on either side. When I get on the big computer I will add a photo for you.

It does make sense but would be great to see a photo too.

Ours is about to have it's 4th year and we love it! For all the same reasons as Mel. We have an inner which makes a big difference in terms of warmth. We unhitch half of it on wet days and fold it back. It keeps the muddy small people off the bedding. The eyelet on the pole is a good place to hang a light (but with an inner you forego the possibility of a tea light chandelier).

It's still looking good. The bird poo stains seem to be about consistent in number year to year so I can only assume that they are fading away. We are about to reproof it when we get to pembrokeshire this weekend so maybe we will have less adhesion for such things. We bought the one with a zip off groundsheet which makes it quite heavy to lug around (and hence lug up to the loft room when we want to lay it out to dry). We tend to open the boot, roll it out and pitch it. We are however known to wheel it down (but not up) the hill at Thistledown. It doesn't suffer from condensation like our old plastic tent so unless it is actually raining when you have to take it down it rarely needs a lot of drying. We take it down and fold it in half to dry one underside of the groundsheet then turn it over while we are packing the car.

Our only accessories to date are a carpet (ex student days), a 99p doormat and an ikea 99p dustpan. We aren't really the spick and span types but it isn't really showing much signs of age. I am about to buy an awning from Obelink but really want a canvas dining shelter (all 24kg of it)!

We don't see many of anyone when we go camping most of the time. Lots of facilities / large sites tend to be expensive and have allocated pitches that sometimes don't fit a 5m tent (7m with guys). We have found some fab C&C certified sites which suit us brilliantly with basic facilities and no marked pitches. A field with a loo and a tap in the corner is perfect for us.