Durham Book Festival runs from Friday 9 to Sunday 11 October this year, and it’s one of the oldest literary festivals in the country. A long weekend of authors, ideas and conversation spread across venues in the centre of Durham.
If you’re coming from further afield, the accommodation question tends to get decided before the programme does, which is the wrong way round. Here’s how we’d suggest approaching it.
Wait for the programme before you fix your nights
The festival runs across three days and the events are spread across all of them. Which nights you actually need depends entirely on which events you want, and that isn’t knowable until the full programme is published on the festival’s own pages.
This year’s line-up includes an evening with Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen, Susanna Clarke, and Neil Tennant appearing as part of the Forged in the North series. There’s also a North East Big Read of Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party, with free copies going out through libraries and community settings across County Durham, and Foley herself appearing at the festival.
The sensible order is to look at the programme first, work out whether you’re a Friday-and-Saturday person or a full weekend person, and then ring us. If you’d rather secure somewhere before the line-up lands, book the full weekend and we can talk about trimming it later.
Why staying outside the city works for this one
Festival weekends concentrate demand in central Durham, and the city is compact. Parking is the usual pinch point, and it gets harder the closer you are to the middle and the later the event finishes.
We’re in the village of Plawsworth, just outside Durham City near Chester-le-Street, which puts you far enough out that parking stops being a problem and close enough that getting in is straightforward. Our parking is free, on site, and there’s space for larger vehicles if you’re travelling as a group.
The other thing that suits this particular weekend is the shape of the days. Book festival trips are stop-start: an event in the morning, a gap, something else at teatime, an evening talk that finishes late. Coming back to a cottage or apartment with a proper sitting room and your own kitchen makes those gaps restful rather than an exercise in finding somewhere to sit down.
Getting in and back again
There’s a bus stop a short walk from us on the A167, with regular services into Durham, and services in the other direction towards Chester-le-Street and Newcastle from the stop opposite. For evening events it’s worth checking the current timetable with the operator before you rely on the last one back, since bus times change and an author event overrunning is not unheard of.
If you’d rather not, several taxi firms operate locally and the numbers are in the information pack in your accommodation. Plenty of guests drive in for daytime events and take a taxi for the evening ones, which is a reasonable compromise.
Durham railway station is a few miles away and Chester-le-Street is closer still, so if part of your group is arriving by train and part by car, that works too.
Eating around a festival timetable
This is where self-catering earns its place. Festival weekends produce a lot of people wanting dinner at the same time in the same small city, and restaurant tables between a five o’clock event and a seven-thirty one are not easy.
Every one of our properties has a proper kitchen, so you can eat when the timetable allows rather than when a restaurant can fit you in. If you’d rather not shop on arrival, arrange a grocery delivery to land shortly after you get here and it’s dealt with.
Access and evening timings
If access matters to you, the festival team publish their arrangements and can help with seating, personal assistant tickets and BSL interpretation, though the last of those needs a couple of weeks’ notice, so raise it at the point of booking tickets rather than later. Some events at the larger venue have been live-streamed in previous years, which is useful if someone in your party would rather watch from the sofa.
Do tell us if you’re coming in late from an evening event. We can arrange a self-check-in if you’re arriving after our office closes, and it’s much easier to sort out beforehand than on the night.
Booking with us
October is a busy month here and the festival weekend more so. If you know you’re coming, ring us early even if you haven’t picked your events yet.
Tell us the shape of your group and how you’re planning to travel, and we’ll match you to something that suits. Have a look at our cottages and apartments or our frequently asked questions, then get in touch or ring us on 0191 371 0251.
