Youth hostelling in Britain was based on the system which began in Germany in the first decade of last century, and the Youth Hostel Association for England & Wales was established in 1930 to provide opportunities for young people to escape the poor air quality, cramped housing conditions and general poverty of the cities during the Great Depression.
In the West Country, a regional group met in Bristol in December 1930, and was formally constituted by the following March, covering Somerset, Gloucestershire and North Devon. By Easter 1931 Somerset could boast 3 hostels in Bath, Wookey Hole and Street, with more opening thereafter, as the scheme’s popularity grew through the 1930s. By the end of 1931 73 hostels had been opened nationally to the YHA’s 6,000 members, and there were over 80,000 members by 1939.
Regional officers actively promoted the new ventures in the local media, extolling the natural advantages of Somerset for hiking and cycling. An article in the 1931 Somerset Year Book waxed lyrical: “The variety of its scenery, the proximity of hill and plain, moor and sea, provides some of the most extensive and beautiful views to be found anywhere.”
The Youth Hostel in Street is the oldest in the country still operating, a proud boast for Somerset hostelling. As with so much in Street, the hostel had influential Quaker origins. The property was built in 1914 by two sisters, Catherine and Ellen Impey – connected with other local Quaker families such as the Clothiers – and bequeathed to the Society of Friends in 1923, where it was used as a rest home for the employees of Street’s famous Clark’s Shoes, and then leased to the YHA in 1931. Designed as a summer house in Swiss chalet style, it sits on Ivythorn Hill, and its popularity probably owes much to its proximity to Glastonbury and its Tor.
It expanded its facilities during the 1930s, but, in common with hostels nationwide, its activities were disrupted and during the wartime period. It was closed in 1939 and during 1941-3, but was open for business during 1940 and from 1944. In the decades after the war, further improvements were made to the Street Hostel’s facilities, including electricity in 1959-60, and a major refurbishment in the early 1990s.
Some idea of Street Hostel in the immediate postwar era can be gleaned from a Central Somerset Gazette article of 6 May 1949, entitled “A night’s lodging for eighteen pence”. At that time it had 43 beds and around 4,300 member stays. “For the astonishingly small sum of 1/6 a night, members are provided with a bunk, mattress, three blankets and a pillow, with use of the common room and dining room.” To help keep costs low, lodgers undertook various duties, including “such chores as helping with the washing-up, wood-chopping or preparing the vegetables.” Appropriately for the period, the wardens noted the influx of visitors from many countries “mixing together in the common room on an equal footing. That should certainly be a big power for peace.”
Of course it was not always sweetness and light. The warden complained in a letter to the local press in 1949 about trespassers straying from the public footpaths: “It is more than disturbing to find complete strangers walking round our garden and completely strange noses pressed against our windows.” In another such letter in 1953, the Street warden highlighted one aspect of the hostel becoming a victim of its own success, with many lodgers using hostels simply as a cheap form of accommodation, arriving by car or motor-cycle rather than as a base for healthy activities such as hiking and walking. He feared that they would crowd out the more genuine visitors arriving on foot or bicycle, and even begged the locals to refuse to allow cars or motor bikes to be parked overnight if the people are clearly making for the hostel.
To end on a more positive note, here’s a comment by a visitor on a cycling tour who stayed at the Street Hostel in the summer of 1960: “Chalet-type hostel. In the outhouse again. Went to a local farm for milk; the farmer took it straight from the churn. Peeled spuds in the warden’s kitchen, also extra duty of 50 pumps for water. Good all round hostel.”
Those were the days!
© JB Seatrobe (Barry K Winetrobe & Janet Seaton) 2021.
A version of this article was published originally in the May 2020 issue of The Leveller, #116.