A Hostel A Week

This week – Derwent Hall.

“Although the hostel is a very beautiful one, the self-cookers’ room and equipment was terrible.”

Derwent Hall in Derbyshire became an icon for early hostels.

The hall was built in 1672, a former residence of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was bought from Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent in 1920 by the Derwent Valley Water Board to prepare for a major flooding scheme. The foundations now lie under Ladybower Reservoir, completed in 1945.

Derwent Hall hostel was opened, at least officially, on 2nd June 1932, though the Hall may have been in some kind of youth hostel use much earlier, when Bertha Gough stayed there. Now read on…