A long weekend gave me an opportunity to escape London for a few days and a chance to explore a new part of the country. So we went almost as far north as you can while staying in England to the Kielder forest, just north of Hadrian’s wall. Kielder forest is home to the largest reservoir in Northern Europe, built in the 1960’s to support the industry in the North, which sadly diminished just a few years later. The Forest has a strange Scandinavian feel to it because of the Sitka Spruce trees that dominate the area. These fast growing trees were planted after the war in order to aid the post war reconstruction. Efforts are now being made to reintroduce native species of trees to the area. The entirely man made landscape adds a certain interest to the area however.

The main star of the show for this trip however, was the accommodation. In the first series of George Clarke’s Amazing spaces he embarked on the construction of the ‘Sky Den’, a tiny three room structure that sits happily in its siting, perfectly framing views and with a mechanically opening roof offering a chance (weather dependant) to lie in bed to watch the stars in some of the darkest skies in Europe.

Consisting of three basic elements, a square, a triangle, and a circle, in the sky Den very distinct and unique spaces have been created. The tiny living space has flat-pack seats and pull down tables and beds built into the walls allowing the user to reconfigure the space to the accommodate the activities required.

The circle element is a repurposed pipe, perfectly oriented for the views up the tiny valley of the stoney brook that adds a constant sound of running water as an ongoing reminder of where you are. Benches around a small log burning stove mean that you can huddle around late into the night.

Finally, the triangle placed on top is home to the master bedroom, with a turn of a switch and a push of a button the roof slowly opens to the sky. The experience of lying in bed with swallows playing overhead is quite spectacular, even if you do have to get quite lucky for the conditions to be ideal for sleeping. A long vertical window in this room turns the steam into a work of art, keeping the magic even when the weather isn’t perfect.