A Hostel A Week – Wasdale Hall

“What a hostel! Chicken for supper! Half a fried egg each for breakfast. Loo down yard.”

Wasdale Hall, Wastwater, Wasdale, the name keeps changing. There have been two hostels in the valley, but it’s a cracking location whatever it’s called. And some of Lakeland’s best walking and finest hills.

The small youth hostel at Windsor Farm in Wasdale opened at Easter 1936, too late for the 1936 Handbook. For most of its life YHA called it Nether Wasdale, only breaking with tradition in its final half-dozen years by giving the name Wastwater… Read more in John Martin’s historical profile.

Author photo above, a traditional view, near the hostel, after a long early autumn day last year.