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Wymeswold's Youth Hostel
Joan Shaw
"The new hostel at Wymeswold will be opened tomorrow afternoon at 4.30 by the Vicar of Wymeswold. The new hostel will be the Elms on Brook Street and the warden Mr S. Brown"
Nottingham Journal, 6th May 1938.
Following a trend that had become popular on the Continent, the Youth Hostels Association was formed in 1930 to provide simple cheap accommodation to enable young people to access and enjoy the countryside, particularly cyclists and ramblers. Annual membership was five shillings (25p) and a bed for one night was a shilling (5p). By 1931 the YHA had a membership of 6,000 and there were already 73 hostels, by 1939 there were 83,000 members and the number of hostels had risen to 224.
The Wymeswold hostel was opened on 7th May 1938 with Mr Stanley Brown from Nottingham as warden.
A visitor to the hostel a few weeks later gave this account in a local newspaper:
During the weekend I made a visit with a friend to the new Youth Hostel at Wymeswold on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, and I was pleased to discover one of the nicest hostels in the district. The hostel is in a large grey house in the middle of the village, and the warden, Mr Stanley Brown, recently a keen Nottingham cyclist, knows how to look after the members.
In the kitchen I found half a dozen members cooking their supper on primus stoves and later, after they had had their meals in the common room, with a lovely bow window and an interesting library, we had pleasant talks of travels that had been and travels to come. And so to bed. I liked Mr Brown's nice way of naming the dormitories after the view from each window. I slept in the Brook Room overlooking the brook which flows down the village street, but there is the Garden Room, the Tree Room, and the Loft, while some strong men slept in the Jail, a small room with iron bars across its solitary window.
When it opened the hostel had provided 30 bed nights, but in less than two years this number had been increased to 45. Blankets were provided and a sheet sleeping bag could be bought for a pound or one could be hired from the warden. There was a members' kitchen with all the facilities needed for cooking supper and breakfast and some hostels offered hot meals, usually cooked by the warden or his wife. Members had to contribute their help towards the smooth running of the hostel, each member being allotted a task – usually washing-up or cleaning – that had to be completed before departure. Times of arrival and departure were fixed and were strictly adhered to.
Many members would belong to a YHA group in their own town and working parties organised within these groups provided additional help and support for the warden. Wymeswold benefitted by support from groups in both Leicester and Nottingham.
We are fortunate in having Mr Brown's description of a working weekend at Wymeswold. We do not know where this particular group of members came from but it is obvious that a good time was had by all. Some of Mr Brown's words do remind us that England was on the brink of war. Mr Brown writes:
… by dinner time on Sunday the hostel was reported to be looking as if Hitler, a couple of earthquakes, and the odd hurricane or so had visited the place. Wherever one turned dust was being raised by someone; paint was scraped and paper fetched from the walls. There was whitewash everywhere. Order is emerging from chaos, however, and soon a new hostel will appear, bright and shiny in its new coats of paint and distemper.
The popularity of a hostel depended as much on the warden as its situation. Mr and Mrs Brown at Wymeswold gave their young visitors much more than a bed for the night. Their aim was that, "as many members as possible will be able to enjoy a jolly weekend in Wymeswold. A special party is being arranged for the last weekend in each month, followed by a ramble, paper-chase, or similar affair on the Sunday morning." Not content with offering entertainment for their guests, Mr and Mrs Brown also held dances in Wymeswold village hall which raised money to help with the costs of running the hostel.
In May 1946 Wymeswold Hostel had been open for eight years and the warden and his wife threw a big anniversary party to celebrate. The main entertainment on this occasion was a scavenger hunt. The pictures below were taken by Peter Shaw on that weekend and the hostellers featured were his friends from the Leicester YHA group.
The warden's son.
But even as the anniversary party in full swing, the hostel's days were numbered. On 4th May 1946 Gartons of Loughborough advertised for sale "a large residence, let as a youth hostel, yearly rent £52." The following week the local press reported that The Elms in Wymeswold had been sold.
On 7th September 1946, the Sheffield Star Green 'Un broke the news that "Wymeswold Hostel, situated in the main street of one of the prettiest villages in Leicestershire" was to be closed. Closure appears not to have been the choice of the YHA who were making efforts to find other accommodation in the area.
The end was very near.
Wymeswold Hostel closed its doors on 30th September 1946.
Note: The Elms has since been renamed the Dower House.
Thanks to Paul Howitt and Nigel Bampton for their help.
Update
In the Loughborough Echo of 12th January 1940 is the following report:
New Year's party held. Wymeswold YHA hostel which was opened by Mr Stanley Brown as warden about two years ago, is now one of the most popular in the district and the number of bed nights has been considerably increased.
Accomodation is now provided for 45 – at the time of opening it was thirty – and the blackout has been successfully met by dances and parties.
David Smith (son of Nell Smith) emailed to say:
I have no memories of the Youth Hostel, but unless I am mistaken, the
warden was a hairdresser. I much preferred him to Bill Hames whose
haircutting was torture. Bill lived in the house later occupied by Bill
Syme, the legal eagle and cricketer. Stanley lived in a small house a
little further north of Hames and the Bartram bakery. He then moved to the
big house on Brook Street previously owned by the Talbots. (Their daughter
Betty Talbot was a smasher who married a Brazilian.) I remember Stanley
telling me that I had more hairs on my head than anybody he had seen.
Would it were still so.
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