Loitering Within-Tents

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Belle Tents gives you an insight into coping under canvas.

Why did we start making tents? Because we hate camping that's why. It occurred to us one day in 1991, that if we HAD to spend the summer travelling around with children, dog, cat and Crisis Cafe, then we could at least do it in style.

Crisis Cafe was one of those really brilliant ideas that was sure to make our fortune. With a large pile of ex-forces dung-coloured canvas, making the marquee for the cafe was a combination of skill, ingenuity and extreme ignorance, and ended up looking like something like the mess tent from M*A*S*H*. This wonderful creation was then lined in beautiful gold satin hangings from a film set and lit with a motley collection of lights well gelled up; then old gas cookers and, most importantly, a bar were installed. This we then carted around to various festivals as a mobile 'green room' to keep the crew and performers so jollied up that they forgot that they were working 24hrs a day for peanuts. This was all well and good but was doomed to failure because we would all stay up all night drinking the profits. Not what Michael Hesseltine at the time would have called good business sense, but then he was not exactly known as an authority on Fun was he, though we certainly had our fair share of that.

After a brief drying out period, we got a bit excited about this tent making lark, it definitely had potential. Well obviously we were experts at it, hadn't we just made a marquee right off first time? This time we would make one for ourselves to live in, again from army canvas only a lovely creamy white. It made a very nice round shaped tent about 10' (3m) in diameter; just enough space for ourselves, dressing table, fitted carpets, cat, dog and the inevitable gold satin curtains. The children were cruelly relegated to an ugly frame tent. We just wish that someone had told us that the canvas we had made our tent from wasn't water-proofed! Still, it looked OK. Fortunately we only make stupid mistakes once and now use only the very best materials and have the construction down to a fine art.

We like to have parties. We don't mean those nice ones with the chairs in the front room pushed back and the ornaments put away in the sideboard in case someone waves their arms about when illustrating a point about Greek architecture. We mean the full-on parties with a couple of bands, barrels of xxxxx and every local surfer and his ironing board. This sort of bash, unless you live in Kensington Palace, has got to be held in the great outdoors in order to make sure that the neighbours receive the full benefits of the noise pollution. Unfortunately it also means you, your guests and your gate-crashers are at the mercy of the famous British Weather. We have got round this problem by creating a 'toggle' of tents. By erecting a large marquee with a circle of our smaller tents attached around the outside, we realized that a single venue with various 'rooms' could be created, each with a different theme. A kiddies play tent to keep them out of our way, a bar tent to hang out in, a front room tent with ornaments for those wishing to discuss Greek architecture, a sleaze tent exuding decadent luxury that filled up with very odd characters doing strange things with Zippo lighters, all surrounding the main marquee, with the band doing very nicely keeping the dancing contingent happy.

It's very tempting to make bigger and more fantastic marquees but, perhaps fortunately, we are constrained by the size of our workshop. Grandiose ideas are all very well but not if you haven't the room to fulfill them in. So the largest marquee we make is the 30' x 74' (9 x 22.5m), but this won't prevent us from offering the option of adding tents for extra rooms all over the place to make it that bit more interesting.

There has to be colour too. We're a bit tired of the pristine white spans of canvas that most of the bigger manufacturers are enamoured with. Then they go and line them with peach nylon!

Shape is important too. Curves are alluring and curves are Belle Tent's speciality; don't have a straight tent if you can get a curvy one, as looking good is what it's all about. But most of all it's about fantasy.

Laura Ashton & Dave Rothwell , summer 1995

24' x 48' Marquee

We had another busy season despite all the rain and nearby Boscastle getting flooded. Fortunately, the land is very well drained here and so we suffered no damage ourselves. We happened to be living in one of our tents in our orchard at the time and yet stayed nice and dry!

We made three of the 24' x 48' Triple Pole Marquees (pictured)

See Here for a customer review for this marquee.

2005

In the Spring we made a second 52' x 30' marquee for the marquee hire company Ashley Events. They purchased their first from us in 1999, and added a second centre section, to make a 74' x 30' Triple Pole Marquee, in 2001. As Simon, the owner, says "If I had had the two marquees last season I could have rented them both out every weekend!" Ashley Events can be contacted at www.ashleyevents.co.uk

We had a ridiculously busy summer and even had to turn work down. Yet another 24' x 48' Triple Pole Marquee was made in July and is now in Menorca.

Also The Rattle Bags, an early years music & theatre company, now have a 18' x 14' tent to do workshops in.

See Hire Tents for contact details for either of the above.

2006

We made a variety of tents last summer including a 24' x 48' marquee with extension, a 24' diameter marquee and an 18' pavilion tent, all for a company who are planning to hire them in the North West area.

At the same time we made lots of camping tents for our own campsite as last summer we set up our orchard, here at Owls Gate, to allow camping in a fully kitted-out Belle Tent. This was a new venture for us and was very exciting. It proved a great experience, we met a whole bunch of new people and had a lot of fun. Go to Belle Tents Camping for more information.

2007

It was a very busy summer for tent making. In May we completed a charcoal grey and white 52' x 30'marquee, we will post photographs when we get them.

And in June a red and charcoal grey 20' x 32' marquee (pictured below) for The Great Voltini, an electrifying show. See www.voltini.com for details.

It's pictured in our camping field and you can see the 'bar' tent through it in the background.

Black and Red 20' x 30' Marquee

2008 so far...

All of our camping tents were up in Battersea Power Station during February for the shooting of an episode of Trial & Retribution. The tents had a lovely time and came back full of themseves thinking that they're now TV stars.

Back in the workshop, we are now very busy making a variety of small and large tents for the coming season.

Our summer campsite was very popular last year. We had made a few additions and improvements, including a beautiful woodburner in the 'bar' tent. We are now taking bookings for this summer: see Belle Tents Camping for more information.


Camps at Owls Gate