Middleton-in-Teesdale

Hotel choice in Middleton-in-Teesdale itself is small and characterful rather than extensive, reflecting the size of the town. The Teesdale Hotel, an historic coaching inn right on the Market Place, has offered bed and breakfast, self-catering and restaurant rooms to travellers for generations and remains the most central option, while the Forresters Bar and Restaurant also has rooms attached to its ground-floor dining room. Both put you within easy walking distance of the shops, cafés and the start of local walking routes, including the Pennine Way itself.

Beyond the town, the wider dale is well served by farmhouse bed and breakfasts, converted barns and self-catering cottages, many occupying stone buildings originally put up by the London Lead Company in the nineteenth century. These tend to suit visitors who want a quieter, more rural base with easy access to High Force, Low Force and the open moorland above, and several specifically cater to Pennine Way walkers with early breakfasts, drying rooms and luggage transfer arrangements. Barnard Castle, eight miles down the valley, offers a larger choice of hotels and inns if you want a bigger town as your base while still being a short drive from Teesdale's main attractions.

Booking ahead is worth doing here, particularly in summer, since the total number of rooms in and around Middleton is modest and demand from walkers tackling the Pennine Way, along with weekend visitors drawn by the waterfalls, can fill the smaller places quickly. Outside peak season the pace slows considerably, and a stay here in autumn or winter can feel wonderfully remote, with roaring pub fires a fair trade for shorter days on the fells.

Middleton-in-Teesdale is really a gateway to Upper Teesdale's landscape, and most of its best attractions are the wild, natural kind rather than visitor centres and gift shops — though there's a good one of those too.

• High Force — England's largest waterfall by volume, where the River Tees drops around 21 metres over a sill of dark dolerite rock into a deep plunge pool. It's a short walk from the car park just outside Middleton and is spectacular after heavy rain.
• Low Force — A gentler series of cascades a couple of miles downstream from High Force, reached via the Pennine Way and crossed by the elegant Wynch Bridge, one of the earliest surviving suspension footbridges in the country.
• The Pennine Way — England's oldest National Trail runs straight through Teesdale, and the stretch beside the Tees between Middleton, Low Force and High Force is one of its most rewarding and accessible sections, even as a there-and-back afternoon walk.
• Bowlees Visitor Centre — A former Methodist chapel a few miles upstream, now a small countryside centre with displays on the geology, wildlife and mining history of Upper Teesdale, plus a car park that's a good starting point for the waterfalls.
• North Pennines National Landscape — Middleton sits right inside this UNESCO Global Geopark, a sweep of heather moorland, hay meadows and dales criss-crossed with quiet lanes that reward slow exploring by bike or on foot.
• Lead mining heritage — The London Lead Company's legacy is everywhere, from the planned streets of the town itself to the ruined engine houses, hushes and spoil heaps at Coldberry Mine on the fells above, a striking reminder of the industry that built the place.
• Middleton-in-Teesdale town — Worth an hour in its own right, with the restored Market Place, the Bainbridge Memorial Fountain and a scattering of independent shops and galleries housed in the old lead company buildings.

The Teesdale Hotel, a historic coaching inn right on the Market Place, is the town's long-standing hub for food and a pint, serving meals cooked from locally sourced ingredients. The Forresters Bar and Restaurant offers a French-influenced menu alongside rooms, while Café 1618 combines all-day café-bar dining with a secret beer garden and an adjoining antiques shop. For something simpler, the Tees'pot Café serves homemade lunches, Samuel James is a popular deli and café for breakfast through to dinner, and the local fish and chip shop is well regarded for a classic takeaway by the river.

Camping around Middleton-in-Teesdale puts you right in the heart of the North Pennines National Landscape, with the River Tees, the Pennine Way and the waterfalls at High Force and Low Force all within easy reach. Sites here tend to be small, family-run affairs rather than big holiday parks, making the most of a genuinely quiet, big-sky landscape of drystone walls, hay meadows and open moorland. Leekworth Caravan and Camping Park sits about fifteen minutes' walk from the town on the edge of the North Pennines, with grass and hardstanding pitches and free fishing on the Tees, while Daleview Caravan Park offers a large tent field with electric hook-ups on the outskirts of the village, and further sites such as Cote House extend the choice a little further afield in the surrounding dales.

As with anywhere in England, wild camping in Teesdale is not legal without the express permission of the landowner, whatever the local tradition of access might suggest — the fells above the dale are largely private grouse moor and farmland, and campers should stick to the established sites unless they've arranged otherwise directly with a landowner. That said, the region's official campsites make it easy to get a similar feel of remoteness without the legal grey area, with many pitches looking straight out over moorland or along the river.

Given its elevation — much of Upper Teesdale sits above 300 metres, climbing to open fell well over 500 metres — the camping season here is best treated as running from late spring to early autumn. Nights can turn cold even in summer, and the weather changes quickly on the tops, so it pays to come prepared regardless of the forecast down in the valley. Spring brings lambing and the first of the dale's famous wildflower meadows, while early autumn often delivers the clearest, calmest conditions for walking and stargazing, with minimal light pollution across the North Pennines. For those who'd rather have a roof and underfloor heating after a day on the Pennine Way, a growing number of glamping pods, shepherd's huts and safari tents in the area offer the same views with rather more comfort, and are worth booking well ahead in peak walking season.