• Picture 1 – The idyllic Winshields Youth Hostel. Just to the right of the photograph stands to this day the mirror-image building that was the warden’s home. SYHA Archive photograph.

Here is the fourth of our new SYHA Website Historical Archive feature, Treasure Trove. Please feel free to send in your memories, additional information and corrections, or to request further historical features on your favourite hostel of former times, and we’ll do our best to provide pictures and information.

In Issue 3 of Treasure Trove we outlined the development of the first chain of walking hostels in SYHA’s first year, 1931. Broadmeadows, Thirlestane, Chapelhope, Shortwoodend and Langhaugh all opened within a few months. This issue shows how the network of hostels between Edinburgh and the English border grew and consolidated in the years up to the outbreak of war.

There were no new hostels in this area in 1932; instead, the great expansion came to further-flung parts of Scotland. In 1933, however, the chain was extended by the addition of three additional remote hostels: Winshields, near Lockerbie, Attonburn, near Kirk Yetholm, and Foresthill, north of Peebles. There might have been others, at Romanno Bridge and Tweedsmuir, on the Edinburgh to Moffat Road, had the plans of the Edinburgh committee come to fruition. There was great eagerness to establish new hostels in the Lammermuir Hills, too, though without success. A city hostel was also created in Edinburgh itself.

The hostel at Winshields (Picture 1) was a double butt-and-ben cottage in a delightful rustic spot on the Caldwell Burn, north of Boreland, near Lockerbie. It was seen as a link with YHA hostels in north Cumberland. It closed on the outbreak of war, and though the building was stripped of its roof and converted to a cow byre, its character can today be judged from the mirror-image warden’s house, which still exists as a private dwelling. Attonburn Hostel (Picture 2) lasted until 1938, and may have had to close because of the personal circumstances of the warden and her family. It was housed in a solid stone terraced row of agricultural workers’ houses located behind the farm at Attonburn, south of Town Yetholm and close up against the English border. Its place was taken by the perennial favourite Kirk Yetholm Hostel, though the move was delayed because of the outbreak of war.  Foresthill (Picture 3) is a little known hostel; it was a basic hut, prone to damp, and lasted just until 1937. Only recently has an illustration been found. It was opened as a staging post between Edinburgh and Langhaugh or Broadmeadows, but was rarely busy. There was accommodation for 32, though no camp-site. The hostel closed somewhat ignominiously at the end of the 1937 season.

 

 

 

 

 

Edinburgh’s first youth hostel opened on 1st June 1933 in a large house that was formerly part of Merchiston Castle School, at 8 Colinton Road (Picture 4). It lasted until replaced by Hailes House (Picture 5) in 1936, but was demolished shortly after that; a block of flats in art déco style replaced it and still stands today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1934 there was a major coup for SYHA in acquiring Ferniehirst Castle, near Jedburgh (Picture 6). The sixteenth-century castle was offered as a loan to SYHA by the Marquis [or Marquess] of Lothian, and opened on 12th May. This property, along with Carn Dearg at Gairloch, was influential in setting an alternative direction for the Association, where huge properties were taken as gifts, loans or at bargain purchase price in addition to the traditional cottages and huts. Ferniehirst was the second of four named castles operated by the Association before the war, the others being Dalquharran, Blackness and Hoddom. In 1937, the Marquis helped ease the growing demand for beds at the castle hostel by repairing at his own expense the Chapel, for use as an extra dormitory. Ferniehirst was lost to requisition during the war (when a small hostel was opened at Edgerston, near Carter Bar), but returned to give 40 more years’ service until new owners closed it in 1985. A great favourite was the euphoniously-named Snoot Hostel (Picture 7), so called because of its position on a ‘Snout’ of the Borthwick Water near Hawick. The hostel opened here in a small redundant United Free Church, thanks to the generosity of Mr JS Brown of Chisholme, on 22nd June 1935. For many years the warden ‘Nellie’ Govelock lived in the cottage next door. The hostel was always regarded as a quaint curiosity, though by 1996 it was structurally unsafe and had to close. Many were sad to see it go.

In 1936 Edinburgh got its new hostel at Hailes House, a substantial property, but always put at a disadvantage by its distance (a half-hour bus ride) from the city centre. It closed in 1969, supplanted by the new Eglinton Hostel. In the same year Wanlockhead Hostel (Picture 8) opened its doors. Though on the fringe of the ‘Borders’ area, it opened many routes into the Lowther Hills from hostels already mentioned. It always proudly advertised its position as the highest village in Scotland. The hostel, a medium-sized stone house, formerly a shooting lodge and doctor’s residence, had a distinguished career spanning over 70 years. It was closed by SYHA in 2005, but lived on for a few more years as an affiliate hostel before eventual withdrawal in 2009.

Another huge hostel started up at Hoddom Castle (Picture 9), near Dumfries, in 1937. This was offered for a peppercorn rent by Captain Brook, who showed great generosity in preparing the battered old central keep for use by SYHA. There were 60 beds at first, though it was claimed that the capacity would soon be quadrupled. Like other properties, it was lost to the Association at the beginning of the war. Nowadays it is a glorious and vast ruin, the centrepiece of a caravan holiday park. Hoddom created a further link between Winshields and the Carlisle area of YHA.

In 1938 Kendoon Hostel (Picture 10) opened, at an isolated location on a by-road 8 miles north of New Galloway, again on the fringes of the ‘Borders’, but included for the sake of completeness. The single-storey wooden building was originally the site headquarters and workers’ hostel servicing the Kendoon Power Station of the Galloway Hydro-Electric scheme, ¾ mile distant. Of all this chapter’s youth hostels, Kendoon is the only survivor, though now only available as a group rental operation. Otherwise, the Border area in 2010 has three representatives: the 1931 Broadmeadows Hostel, Kirk Yetholm from 1942, and Melrose from 1947.

There remains one hostel to describe from the pre-war area: the barely known Walkerburn-on Tweed (Picture 11), opened as a connection between the Peebles area and Broadmeadows on 17th June 1939, and fated by international affairs to last a few weeks only, and to be enjoyed by barely 700 members. It was in a handsome building on a modern housing estate, but was soon requisitioned. SYHA wanted to claim it back during the war, but did not succeed. The Association’s Historical Archive has a membership card showing the rare Walkerburn Hostel Stamp.

• Picture 2 – This old postcard shows the row of four workers’ cottages at Attonburn Farm. The precise location of the hostel or the warden’s house within the row has not been discovered.
• Picture 3 – The only illustration of Foresthill Hostel in the Archives is illustrated here (photograph SYHA Archive). It was recently acquired as a kind gift from Philip Lawson, and though uncaptioned, held sufficient clues in its landscape details to identify it with the precise location of the old hostel.
• Picture 4 – Edinburgh’s first youth hostel was in this handsome, though probably time-worn, building at Colinton Road. It was demolished as soon as SYHA move out in 1936. From a postcard, SYHA Archive.
• Picture 5 – Hailes House, in Kingsknowe, was the 1936 replacement hostel in Edinburgh, and served for over 30 years. For much of that time it shared the trade with Bruntsfield Hostel, nearer the city centre. Today the handsome building provides private office accommodation. From a postcard, SYHA Archive.
• Picture 6 – Ferniehirst Castle, as photographed with a variety of hostellers’ steeds by YHA voluntary warden George Miller in 1973 (author’s collection).
• Picture 7 – Snoot Hostel, with the warden’s house to the left. This wonderfully atmospheric winter’s shot was taken by D Joynson in March 1989, and reproduced with his permission.
• Picture 8 – a typical crowd-scene photograph in the kitchen at Wanlockhead in the earlier post-war years. At the centre is warden Mrs Isabella Young. Her father Pop Phillips was the first warden here, in 1936; the two looked after the hostel for half a century. Photograph, SYHA Archive.
• Picture 9 – Hoddom Castle Youth Hostel, near Dumfries, attractively illustrated in this publicity brochure of 1937 (SYHA Archive).
• Picture 10 – Kendoon Hostel, a recent SYHA publicity photograph.
• Picture 11 – Walkerburn-on-Tweed Youth Hostel: a rare photograph from one of the SYHA Archive 1930s anonymous Holiday Log Books. Notice the triangle sign in the garden. Sadly, the building has nowadays lost its handsome chimneys.
  

John Martin
SYHA Volunteer Archivist
July 2010

In the next issue of Treasure Trove I’ll be looking at some of SYHA’s temporary youth hostels – unless I receive a request to concentrate on your own favourite area or hostels, of course. Please send contributions, suggestions or corrections to: archive@syha.org.uk