Try the hobby on someone else's gear,just for the weekend.
Borrowed Weekend lends complete kits from neighbours in Ashgrove who have already bought the expensive part. You pay a few days of rental, they tell you honestly what the kit is like, and nobody has to commit to a £1,200 telescope on a maybe.
- 168 kits on the shelf right now
- 61 verified owners living within two miles
- Nothing is for sale. Everything here goes back out again.
The shelf, and what is free
Twelve kits are shown here out of the hundred and sixty-eight we run. Every one comes from an owner who has been verified in person, and every one comes with a condition grade, a date of last service, and a starter guide somebody actually wrote.
Nothing on the shelf matches all of that
- Widen the time. Something that needs a long weekend is nearly always borrowable for a single evening if you ask the owner.
- Drop the collection filter. Owners move house and change library shifts more often than you would expect.
- Shorten the search word. "tent" turns up more than "four-season ridge tent" does.
Nothing held yet
A hold is not a booking. It keeps the dates aside while you decide, takes nothing off your card, and disappears by itself after twenty minutes. Only when the owner accepts does the rental get charged, and then you get a collection window and a code.
Two separate amounts are involved. The rental is a payment you make when an owner accepts. The deposit is a temporary hold on your card, released within two working days of the kit coming back. If an owner turns you down, the deposit hold is released the same day and you owe nothing.
This page is a demonstration, so read this before you trust it. Holds are kept in this browser tab only. Nothing is sent to a server, no payment is taken, and no owner is actually contacted.
How a borrow goes, and how you stop halfway
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Step 01
Read what the owner says before you commit
Every kit carries a condition grade, a dated service record, a full list of what is in the bag, and a note from the person who owns it. Two of the twelve kits on this shelf have a known flaw written into the description, one of them a nose scuffed down to the board. That is deliberate. You would find out anyway, and a written-down flaw usually gets the price reduced.
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Step 02
Choose dates you will really use
Open a kit and the next eight weekends are listed, with the ones already promised to somebody else marked as such. Pick a collect date and a return date and you will see the day count, the rental, the deposit and the take-back date before anything is held. A weekend counts as three days whether you use one or three, because the owner cannot lend the Friday to three different people.
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Step 03
Hold it, then meet the owner
A hold lasts twenty minutes. Once the owner accepts, you get a collection window and a code, and the handover includes a five-minute condition walk-through with both of you on the app. Every item gets photographed and the grade is signed off by both sides. It is the single best protection either of you has, and it takes less time than finding the parking.
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Step 04
Return it, and the deposit goes back
Return by 10am on the due date at the collection point you agreed, or post it back in the prepaid bag if the owner lives more than two miles out. We release the deposit within two working days. After the return you can leave a review, and a review is the only thing on this site that affects anybody's standing.
Every charge, in one table, with nothing tucked away
Borrowed Weekend takes a commission on each rental and nothing else. Owners keep the rest. There is no membership fee, no listing fee, and no fee for cancelling.
| Item | When it applies | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Kit rental | Each day of the loan | £16 to £52 |
| Our commission | Added to the rental at checkout | 12% |
| Payment handling | Once per booking | £1.50 |
| Deposit hold | On your card, released on return | £20 to £120 |
| Damage protection | Optional, per day, excludes loss | £7.00 |
| Late return | Each day after 10am on the due date | £5.00 |
| Cleaning and consumables | Only if the kit comes back unusable | up to £18 |
| Lost or stolen kit | Your deposit is used first | at cost |
Cancelling
- More than 48 hours beforeFull refund of the rental, and the deposit hold is released the same day. We do not charge a cancellation fee when you gave us notice.
- Inside 48 hoursHalf the rental comes back, because the owner has already turned down other people for those dates.
- No-show on collection dayThe rental is not refunded, and the deposit hold stays until the kit is back, up to fourteen days.
- An owner cancels on usFull refund, deposit released immediately, and that owner loses their place in the search order for a month.
Extending, returning early, deposits
Ask on the kit and an owner can usually extend you for £5 a day if the dates are clear. Returning early is always free, and the rental is not refunded, because that weekend is gone. If something arrives back broken you tell us before you leave, and nobody gets billed on the spot.
A deposit is a hold on your card, not a payment. We never take more of it than the repair, the replacement part or the cleaning, and you get a receipt for whatever we did take. Last year, four deposits were released in full after an owner disputed a claim. The median release time is eleven hours.
Owners are checked once a year. Kit condition is checked every time it comes back.
- Owner checksPhoto ID, a right-to-rent check, and a live video walk-through of where the kit is stored. Repeated every twelve months. Sixty-one owners are verified today.
- Kit intakeEvery new kit is checked in by a member of staff at the tool library: serial numbers recorded, consumables replaced, and a baseline condition note written with photographs.
- HandoverA five-minute walk-through with both of you on the app. Each item is photographed and the condition grade is signed off by both sides before anybody leaves.
- Coming backThe owner photographs whatever has changed before the deposit is released. Disputes go to a person rather than a rule engine, and we answer within one working day.
- InsuranceOwners carry £1,000 of cover for what they lend, which covers theft and accidental damage. You are covered to the same limit if a borrowed kit injures you or damages your property.
- Under 18sYou have to be 18 to hold a kit. Lending to a teenager is fine, but book it in your own name and go and collect it yourself.
What the condition grades mean
- ExcellentServiced in the last six months, nothing marked, nothing missing. Most of the shelf is here.
- Very goodWorks exactly as intended, with light cosmetic wear. A scuffed tripod leg, a kiln shelf that has been fired a hundred times.
- GoodWorks, with a known flaw written into the description and the price reduced. We would rather you read it here than find it in a field.
- Worn outNot lent at all. This is the only grade that keeps a kit off the shelf, and it happens about four times a year.
I borrowed a darkroom kit for a fortnight to see whether I would actually finish a roll of film. I did. I still rent Marguerite's enlarger about once a month, and the tripod I eventually bought is now mine.
The condition note said the second tent pole had a repaired ferrule. It did. I would rather read that on a website than find it in a field at nine in the evening.
My daughter is fourteen and had been talking about pottery for a year. We did the hand-building table, no wheel, no kiln, and she has made four things she would not have made otherwise.
Sixty-one verified owners, six neighbourhoods, one tool library
Owners set their own price, their own collection point and their own notice period, and they keep eighty-eight per cent of the rental. They are not employees. The ones who take it seriously are the reason this works at all.
The questions people ask us most
What if I break something in the first hour?
Tell the owner on the handover screen before you close it. The deposit covers the repair rather than the whole kit, and we split that fairly: if it is a manufacturing fault we take it out of the owner's share as well, and if it is genuinely yours, it comes out of the deposit. Nothing is charged to your card on the spot, and nothing is charged without a receipt.
Is it not cheaper to just buy the thing second-hand?
For a £25 bread paddle, quite often yes. For a kiln, a medium-format camera or a four-season tent, no, because the first owner has already paid for the setup and for finding out which accessories were a waste of money. Try it first, then buy the right thing rather than the expensive thing. Several borrowers do exactly that and keep renting the bits they never need to own.
Do I have to be good at it?
No, and most owners would rather you were not. Many of them will spend ten minutes at handover showing you the thing everybody gets wrong. If you have borrowed a kit before and you know the difference between a stop bath and a fixer, say so in a message, because it changes how much they will assume.
How far can I take a kit?
Within Ashgrove, and up to two hours outside it, for anything that is not a boat. Paddleboards travel on the roof rack with the straps supplied, and not inside the car. Each kit says its own limit in the description, because a kiln does not move the same way a telescope does.
What if the owner will not extend the loan?
Ask for a day at a time, up to a week, at £5 a day, and the owner is told straight away. If they say no, return it to the tool library rather than having the argument. It is staffed until nine on Thursdays and until four on Saturdays, and the return counts as on time either way.
Can I borrow the same kit again?
Yes, and regulars get first refusal on the next free weekend. Two kits on this shelf are currently lent to the same five people over and over. If you are going to do this more than three times it is cheaper to buy the kit, and we will tell you so rather than take the commission.
Do you cancel camping loans because of the weather?
No, that is your call and your risk. What we do is put the forecast for the collection window in the kit description, and we will tell you plainly when an amber warning covers the weekend you have picked. Two of the camping owners will not hand a tent over in a gale, and that is written on their profile rather than sprung on the day.
Is my deposit insurance?
No. A deposit covers damage and loss up to its value, and that is the limit. Anything beyond it, or any injury to you or your property, is handled by the insurance each owner holds, which is why we ask to see proof once a year rather than per loan.