The Helvellyn hostel at Greenside, Glenridding, will close at the end of this year's season
Supporters have vowed to oppose the closure of a Lake District youth hostel.
A Facebook group has been formed to try to get the Youth Hostels Association to change its decision to shut the Derwentwater hostel in Borrowdale (login required).
Fans of the Derwentwater hostel at Barrow House say it is an important facility that allows everyone, especially young people the chance to stay in the most beautiful place in the UK.
They add the hostel is unique and totally irreplaceable. The campaign group is urging supporters to write to the YHA chairman Chris Darmon and chief executive Caroline White to tell them they are ‘making a mistake for the YHA and the young people who get so much out of a trip to the Lakes’.
The closure is one of eight across England, including the Helvellyn hostel at Greenside, Glenridding, the one at Hawkshead in the Lake District, Osmotherley in the North York Moors, and hostels in Newcastle upon Tyne, Salisbury, Arundel and Totland Bay on the Isle of Wight.
Black Sail in Ennerdale will be refurbished
But the YHA said it is investing more than £30m in its properties over the next five years, including major refurbishments at the isolated Black Sail hostel in Ennerdale. A new hostel will open at Berwick upon Tweed and the accommodation in Oxford Street in London will be redeveloped.
Buyers for the Kendal and Thorney How, Grasmere, hostels have been found to enable them to continue operating. The eight are scheduled for closure at the end of the 2011 season.
A statement from the organisation, which was formed in 1930, said: “Closing a youth hostel is never easy and YHA does understand the impact this decision will have, particularly for members and guests who enjoy close links and have strong loyalties with this particular hostel.
“We are working closely with all of our staff who are affected by this decision.
“By closing and selling hostels, YHA can release the capital value of these sites to pay for the future investments need elsewhere and to reduce the amount of money we need to borrow to meet our total investment needs.”
The decisions to close the eight venues were taken at the board of trustees’ January meeting.
The statement continued: “YHA is committed to have a network of youth hostels that meet the needs of our customers both now and in the future, one which will be financially sustainable, in which we can invest securely, and which is able to grow and support our charitable object.
“These plans are a major step towards achieving that goal, which will see a capital investment of more than £30m in the next five years.
“Other sites that will be invested in this year are Wilderhope in Shropshire, Rowen in Conwy, Grinton Lodge in North Yorkshire, Salcombe in Devon, Poppit Sands in Pembrokeshire, Tintagel in Cornwall, and Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. This shows our commitment to the breath of our network spread across England and Wales.
The youth hostelling movement was started by German schoolteacher Richard Schirrman to encourage town-dwelling young people to meet new people in the fresh air of the countryside.
Its heyday was in the 1950s with growing membership and hundreds of new hostels opening. Members were expected to join in with washing-up and cleaning duties and travel to hostels by car was discouraged. But increasing demand for smaller rooms and more comfort have changed the nature of many of the buildings and a professional management was put in place in the 1980s.
The 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak hit the YHA hard and an estimated £5m of revenue was lost as the British countryside was effectively closed, and in 2002 10 hostels were closed.
Separate hostel organisations exist in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
John Burland
22 February 2011I posted the following on The Wainwright Society Forum in April 2008 when closures were first being mooted and make no apologies for repeating it now .
It is disppointing to say the least that two of the hostels I mention below are amongst ones scheduled for closure. Both have "character" in my opinion.
Thirty-three years ago, knowing my love of walking, my uncle bought me a present for my twenty-first birthday that I have used extensively over the last thirty years. Was this a rucksack, a compass, or a set of maps, perhaps? No, it was life membership of the Youth Hostels Association!
I was already a Youth Hostel member when he gave me this present and I had visited a number of hostels in different parts of Britain from the age of fifteen onwards, including a cycling tour of the Scottish border area around Melrose and Galashiels with one of my friends from school. Also, in the summer of 1969, I had been to the Lake District with a number of other friends from school where we stayed at one of the finest located hostels in the world. This was Black Sail Hut above Ennerdale - more of which later.
I was dismayed to read that the Youth Hostel Association are considering the possibilities of closing some of the Youth Hostels in the Lake District for commercial reasons and because they do not have the modern attractions for youngsters these days. Whilst not wishing to enter further into a prolonged debate on this, I personally feel that the YHA should be actively promoting these less used hostels to schools and other youth organisations such as the Scout & Guide movement to try and encourage youngsters to visit the Lake District for walking and other outdoor pursuits rather than considering closing them.
I thought whilst writing about Youth Hostelling in the Lake District that it would be useful to look at a small selection of these hostels, particularly the ones which have a piece of history behind them, and most of which I have visited over the last forty years. There is a higher density of Youth Hostels in the Lake District than in any other area of the British Isles. Within the Lake District National Park there are a total of twenty-two hostels plus a couple just outside the park at Kendal and Cockermouth that I always consider as part of the family of hostels in the Lake District area.
The first hostel to be looked at is at Wasdale. The building occupied by the Youth Hostel is called Wasdale Hall and was built between 1829 and 1843 for a Yorkshire wool merchant called Stansfeld Rawson. In 1864 the property was sold at auction to John Musgrave, a Whitehaven solicitor, and then in 1920, H W Walker a tanner from Whitehaven purchased the property. Upon his death in 1959 the National Trust, using various Lake District funds, bought the property along with 22 hectares of land and subsequently they leased it to the YHA. This stone built property occupies a superb position at the foot of Wastwater with an excellent view of The Screes. If staying there in March or April this view is enhanced by the rich yellow colour of the daffodils on the lawns outside of the house.
In the valley of Ennerdale there are two Youth Hostels, High Gillerthwaite and Black Sail. Gillerthwaite is reached by the forest track from Bowness Knott and only residents at the Youth Hostel are allowed to use the car park. This hostel produces its own electricity from a hydroelectric turbine! Two former forestry cottages were combined to form the hostel, which is located in a remote wooded valley surrounded by fells, ridges and many famous peaks. It’s also on the Coast-to-Coast walk, Sculpture Trail and the Ennerdale to Whitehaven cycle path. This is also an ideal location for anyone attempting the Ennerdale Horseshoe as it is only 1¼ miles from the hostel to the summit of Red Pike.
Black Sail, on the eastern side of the River Liza, immediately below the summit ridge of Haystacks, is justifiably described by the YHA as one of the most isolated and excitingly situated hostels in England, if not in the world. It can only be reached on foot and is powered by its own wind generator. Formerly a shepherd’s bothy serving the Lowther Estates, it was leased by the Forestry Commission to the YHA in 1932. As mentioned earlier, I stopped here in 1969 and little has changed there in the intervening 37 years. There is accommodation for 16 people at the Hostel, which is open between Easter and October, and it still remains as popular as ever.
In Borrowdale there are also two hostels, Longthwaite and Barrow House. Longthwaite is a purpose built hostel, which was opened in 1939 with an extension added at the end of the 1960’s. The building is quite stunning in appearance with its Canadian red cedar frontage. Above the fireplace in the main room is a mural of Pillar and the head of Ennerdale, which was painted by my relative, the late W Heaton Cooper.
Barrow House on the eastern shore of Derwent Water, about a mile south of Friar’s Crag, is a much older building than the one at Longthwaite. The eccentric Joseph Pocklington built it in the late 18th century. Building commenced on 26th March 1787 and 5/- (25p) was spent on “ale at the laying foundations”. The house took ten years to build and Pocklington eventually took occupation on 10th January 1797. The final cost of the house and grounds was £1,655. A much more famous occupant lived there in the 1930’s when Bob Graham ran it as a guesthouse. In 1932, at the age of 42, Bob Graham decided to attempt to climb forty-two Lake District summits in 24 hours, one summit for each year of his life. He succeeded in his attempt completing the round in 23 hours 39 minutes. Upon his return to Barrow House, he then cooked breakfast for his pacers! In the property there is a beautiful Adam room, whilst in the exquisite grounds there is a 100-foot high waterfall, the result of diverting the stream when the house was built.
The penultimate hostel I will mention is the Glenridding hostel, often referred to as the Helvellyn hostel, which is about a mile from the village up the road from the Travellers Rest Inn. Both the hostel and the other buildings further along the valley were part of the Greenside lead mine which closed in the early 1960’s. The hostel is housed in the former home of the manager of the mine which was active from 1790 to 1962. The original levels, horizontal tunnels into the hillside from which the ore was extracted, are to be found around ¾ mile further up the stream. Before 1837 the ore was taken away for smelting to either Stair or Alston but after equipment was installed, crushing and smelting were carried out on site. From 1850 these operations were carried out around the Youth Hostel site, the smelt mill having a flue 1½ miles in length to remove the highly toxic fumes produced from this operation. Many of the workers, around 300 in total when the mine was at its peak, lodged locally during the week and travelled home at weekends, although some lived in company owned houses in Glenridding. As the name of the hostel suggests, its location is particularly convenient for the ascent of Helvellyn, the most visited summit in the Lake District.
The final hostel is one of my favourite Youth Hostels, and this is at Ambleside. Housed in a former hotel, this is probably the flagship of the YHA in the Lake District and anyone who has ever stayed there and had breakfast in the dining room with its magnificent view over Lake Windermere to the Langdale Pikes will never forget this experience. In contrast to Black Sail, the smallest hostel with only 16 beds, Ambleside hostel can cater for 257 visitors. The hostel is ideally placed for walking the Fairfield Horseshoe and I have used it in the past on a number of occasions for this purpose.
As well as the hostels we have just looked at, there are another sixteen in the Lake District, with an eclectic mix of larger Victorian properties and more up to date purpose built hostels. This is the fascinating thing I find about hostels – no two are exactly the same.
I recently stopped at King’s Lynn hostel in Norfolk, which is located in the wing of the 500-year-old Chantry College building in the historic part of King’s Lynn. Likewise seven years ago when taking part in the London Marathon my accommodation in London was at St Paul’s hostel, which is in the former Choir Boys School for St Paul’s Cathedral. Yet in the last few years the YHA have opened a brand new hostel in Manchester. Purpose-built in 1995, this hostel enjoys a canal-side location close to the heart of the rejuvenated city centre.
If you have never stayed in a Youth Hostel it is certainly worthwhile checking out one of the ones in the Lake District. The best way of finding out about these is either to visit the YHA website www.yha.org.uk or to ring 0870 770 5672 for details of accommodation at the Lake District hostels. There are special discount schemes for students, one-parent families and disabled people. It is also possible to try out a hostel for a couple of nights before committing to membership of the organisation.
Perhaps the YHA should adopt their initials to mean “Youthful, Healthy & Adventurous” as this is how I still feel after nearly forty years of walking in the Lake District using hostels for my accommodation.
Bernard Ivison
09 June 2011Why have the YHA not put a notice on their main website warning all members about these closures? I am furious that the consultation is almost hidden! The YHA has 200,000 members paying a ridiculously low annual fee, why not increase the membership fee from £19.00 to £40 (this is still a fantastic deal for what members get). To sell off property is ridiculous and very defeatest. The guys at the top should hang their heads in shame for giving in so easy. Selling these great assets is a disgrace and its NOT what your members want! PUT THE FEES UP!!
James Langford
05 October 2011The YHA ethos has totally gone! The company is now being ran by people from the pub trade e.g. former Wetherspoons/John Barras employees. The ideas that are being brought forward all move the YHA further away from its original ideas and morals. The YHA is a charity but in the last few years has become solely focussed on how much profit can be made.
They say the money used from the closures will be invested in other hostels such as Berwick Upon Tweed. I can tell you for a fact that the YHA hardly paid a penny towards that hostel and the majority of the money came from the local council. I was told the YHA paid between 5% and 10%, which in my opinion doesn't justify the closure of so many hostels. Everyone I speak to is disgusted at the YHA's closure of so many hostels and I know that the hard working staff of these hostels are being treated appaulingly by the 'suits' in charge at head office in Matlock, and have been kept guessing as to when a hostel may close and not given full details regarding redundancy and loyalty payments.
I've written to the YHA to complain and had the typical response which I imagine is sent to every unfortunate member who actually cares about the state of the YHA.
Caroline White (the head of the YHA) should be ashamed of herself and anyone that cares for the future of the YHA should speak up and tell her what we think. They've stopped caring about the hostellers, we're all just ££££ to them.
doug walker
18 December 2014just started looking at the business model which YHA have been persuing over the past few years. I`ve been a member for good part of 45 years and whilst I appreciate that times change and realistic decisions have to be made the glossy, corporate, "hotel business" model is not where the yha with its unique, history, support, identity should be going.
Spent a few days at Alfriston Sussex in September, place run down, staff evidently demoralised but was shocked to find a couple of weeks later it had ceased trading. Just this evening picking up that yha staff are struggling to get living wage- appauling! Now searching for salary level paid to "our" award winning CEO. before taking an iterest in the current trustee membership.
Walter Snowdon
09 July 2017I have been a member of the YHA for a contniuous 65 years and am very proud of that. In my young days I was a member of the regional wear tees and eskdale committee. I brought up my children and grandchildren as very happy hostelers and as a scout leader introduced many young people to the movement. I am sad to see the loss of so many good hostels as the YHA pursue the B and B trade instead of the youth of this country FOR WHICH THE MOVEMENT WAS INTENDED. Two of my granddaughters at university have given up as the only time they can hostel is during school holidays when the overnight fees become astronomical. I have just tried to book a hostel for myself (76 years of age and two 14 year old grandchildren. The cheepest ( iHawkshead) was asking EIGHTY TWO POUNDS PER NIGHT ROOM ONLY. hOW DOES THAT INDUCE YOUNG PEOPLE TO GET INTO THE COUNTRY SIDE AND GAIN THEIR INDEPENDENCE. I dont want four star hotels with chefs and luxury carpets I just want good clean small hostels catering for all ages (not fat old people with gigantic suitcases who on many occasions I have heard complaining about the noise young people make enjoying themselves. I think this will be my last year as a member as the cost goes higher in a ratio with hostel closures.