I want a canvas tent. opinions please.

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have lusted after a big beautiful bell tent for a very long lime. am fairly determined to get one this year.
do you lot have any experience of real canvas tents? what do you think? are they as nice as they look? or a pain in the butt when wet?
and do i go for sig or not? do they go all saggy or stay nice and taut?
should i blow my student grant on the tent of my dreams or not?

We have got a canvas frame tent. It is a great tent but it is very heavy - and heavier when wet. We have a double garage at home so can dry it out slowly in there if it is wet outside.

I have a canvas bell tent and there are definitely plenty of advantages. The thicker fabric keeps you warmer when it's cold and cooler when it's warm. If you have a tent with separate groundsheet, it's lovely to roll up the sides on a hot day and lie in the shade. We hang a little LED light mobile (intended to go under a garden parasol) from it at bedtime, and we all lie there looking at the roof :-) It's much more weatherproof than most nylon tents - we've been at camps where we've slept through a thunderstorm, well-insulated because the canvas keeps you warm, and woken up to find that nearly all the nylon tents had puddles on their roofs (exposing leaky seams), several had blown down, and there was our bell tent, impervious. And it's just not true that water comes through if you touch the inside - never happened to us, but I think this may happen if it's been allowed to get mouldy. There are some downsides - the main one is that I bought a 'purist' bell tent which doesn't have an A-frame door, which means that getting in and out in a hurry is difficult if it's raining; I think those with A-frame doorways are better, even if it is slightly more faffing around. My tent takes me 20 minutes to put up, single-handed - but I can then spend an hour faffing around fine-tuning the guy ropes, although I think this is due to my incompetence as I've spent longer faffing around with our other tent, a small nylon dome tent. Anyway, best place to go for informed input on this is the tent discussions on [www.ukcamping.co.uk], where there are lots of people who know lots about tents of all sorts!

Also suggest you look at this thread on the Happy Campers website for lots of discussion on bell tents: www.thehappycampers.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=166.

We bought a bell tent from Holland www.obelink.nl last February and haven't looked back since. Most of our camping last year was done in more or less torrential downpours and, even though our tent has no SIG, we never had any leakage problems even though the ground was often sodden. We had a bit of condensation the first time we used it but I think the soaking it got effectively proofed it and we didn't suffer again.

The only problem with a canvas tent is the need to dry it thoroughly before storing it which does mean you either need a spell of dry weather or have to be prepared to have it draped over your stairs/living room floor furniture for a few days unless you have somewhere else you can dry it, but to be honest I think the hassle of that is worth it.

Bell tents are really quick to put up and being able to roll up the sides on a hot day definitely makes them pleasant to be in - you can lie in much longer than in a nylon tent. This is one good reason for not getting a SIG. Another is not having to fold up your tent with a muddy groundsheet attached.

You will be the talk of the campsite too - everyone comes over for a look.

In my opinion, they're worth every penny but I would shop around. Ours from Obelink was 159 euros plus shipping (15 euro I think or thereabouts) - they have gone up to 195 euros now I think but that is still a fair bit cheaper than lots you can get over here. You do have to order in Dutch though which is a bit of a challenge. Lots on the link above about that. Otherwise, Soulpad www.soulpad.co.uk ones look pretty good.

Whichever you choose you will love it I'm sure

Does anyone know if you can leave them up all summer? Moving somewhere with huge garden but down a path, so was thinking that a traditional tent might make a lovely summer house .