Hotels in 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.