Bowderstone Cottage and Hermitage

Hut History

Over the years, NMC members have put in a great deal of time and effort to make the cottage a viable facility for climbers and walkers. This page gives an insight into the development of the cottage since the NMC first took on its management in 1966.

The two articles below are taken from "No Nobler County" published by the NMC in 1995 to celebrate its 50th Anniversary.

Bowderstone History by Doug Blackett

It was in the summer of 1964 when four members of the Knowe work party, who were busy refurbishing the cottage after a series of harsh gales, stumbled upon their future. Behind the trees lay Bowderstone Cottage, and the possibility that the 90 members of the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club would be able to house their own meets. Beautifully situated in the heart of Borrowdale, Bowerstone Cottage became the new focus for the NMC. The bare shell of the cottage would need extensive work on it, if it were to reach a habitable level. Without electricity, water, a septic tank and easy access by car, the cottage was not going to be refurbished overnight. Although the work was going to be a lengthy process the good foundations, and beautiful position of the cottage, laid the base for the NMC's new borne in Borrowdale.

Correspondence between the NMC and the National Trust was opened up, and from August 1965 Hilda Bath was in contact with Mr Aclands. Hilda Bath and Vic Jonson negotiated the National Trust and Lake District Planning Board into an eventual agreement with help coming from unusual quarters.

Captain S H Bradrock of The Scafell Hotel in Rosthwaite, who was on the committee for the National Trust, lent his support for the NMC's cause. Such well placed support was certainly needed, with there being some 40 other applicants for the cottage. The conclusion of the year long correspondence with the National Trust and Lake District Planning Board, was eventual acquisition of a seven year lease. On the 24th of June 1966 the cottage became part of the NMC's future and history was being made.

Expectations rose, and with the chance to own their own hut in the Lake District, which may never have occurred again, people were stimulated into action. Doreen Waiden, and Gordon Mitchell began the work by establishing a hut appeal. Costs were high, and with funds already committed to the equipping of the Knowe, a new source of money was needed. Basic improvements on Bowderstone Cottage were to cost around £200, which unfortunately coincided with the restoration of the Knowe after the harsh gales of 1964. The formation of the hut appeal in November of 1965 was, therefore, only a beginning, as even today the need for money to maintain Bowderstone Cottage continues.

The Club's resident architect, Vic Jonson, began the mammoth task of organising the renovations as soon as the lease was obtained. Contact was set up between the NMC and local Keswick builders to obtain tenders for the proposed work, while Vic Jonson negotiated the National Trust, and Lake District Planning Board into an agreement. On the 4th of September 1966 a quote arrived which satisfied the NMC and it was this quote from Mr Bainbridge, which was finally accepted. The estimated cost was around £340 and Mr Bainbridge was given the all clear to start on the renovations. Unfortunately, work was held up by the Borrowdale floods of September 1966, and it was a while before work could begin. Eventually Mr Bainbridge supplied the cottage with new plumbing, sanitary fittings, doors, partitions, and drainage to the septic tank.

The NMC finally had a base to house their meets and moved into Bowderstone Cottage. Although the fundamental improvements at the Bowderstone had been completed, the cottage was not fully functional, and it was not until the 26th of September 1966 when the major restoration began. The primary task was to fit the cottage with a new kitchen and bunks, and it was the sleeping arrangements where the first stumbling block arose. The National Trust forbade the mixed sleeping set-up, and conventions of the time required that a chastity curtain was needed to divide the sexes. Hilda Bath immediately solved the problem by purchasing an immense quantity of curtain material and joining it together. The solution was found; a curtain pinned up to divide the room, and, therefore, the sexes. The delivery of timber to fit out the cottage was also far from plain sailing. Edmund Robson was organised to deliver the timber, but an unfortunate series of punctures resulted in an impromptu overnight camp out. While the truck carrying the timber was repaired, the driver slept in the cab, and Douglas Blackett spent a wet night under the truck.

The building of the Green Westmorland slate fireplace resulted from a clandestine visit to Honister quarry. Good quality Lakeland slate was gathered from all available sources, the most prominent of which was Honister quarry. Jack Donaldson, Vic Jonson, and Clive Goodwin extracted the slate, but they did so with the help of an insider. John the quarryman aided and abetted these illicit slate gathering trips.

The main problem for the Bowderstone refurbishers was supplying the cottage with a fundamental necessity - water. Initially, water was obtained from a small spring in the back garden, which fed the storage tank. By the second day of a meet, however, the water supply would run out and club members could be seen scurrying down the hillside in search of water. One day in the Scafell Hotel it was heard that there was a water source about 300 yards up the hillside from the hut. The work party set forth to investigate the rumour and discovered that a mineshaft did hold clean water. Success! Steps were then taken to pipe the water down to the cottage and although it was a lengthy process the end result was clean and quenched club members.

While work was well on course on the Bowderstone Cottage attention was turned to the Hermitage. The empty shell of the Hermitage was stripped out, and the set pot boiler was removed by Derek Craggs and Ian Turnbull. The roof and walls required attention before the Hermitage was even fitted out, and the work party spent an uncomfortable night on the old wooden baton doors after concreting the floor. Les Rimmer supervised the making of the window frames and the building of the first floor. Again the club found assistance from outsiders, with Formica kindly donating the chipboard for the new first floor of the Hermitage. The work on the cottage and the Hermitage laid the foundations for future refurbishment, but it was only the beginning. A programme of continuous improvements had begun with a culmination in a series of major works in the 1970's. By the 1970's the cottage was being extensively used by visiting clubs, which exacerbated the need to upgrade the fittings. The old canvas bunks were replaced with a new three-tier system, the kitchen fittings, cooker and worktops were all replaced, and the gas lighting was overhauled and modernised. Even the ceiling in the main room was lowered to maximise the heating of the cottage. The Hermitage too benefited from a refit between 1972-74 and acquired new bunks. The transportation of the foam rubber for the new bunks holds a story of its own. Dr John Elliot's minibus was used to transport the foam rubber and it was so full that Tom Hammill had hardly room to move while driving.

The comradeship felt between club members encouraged a feeling of kind spirited and good-hearted fun. Early working meets, therefore, enjoyed a very good attendance from club members and their friends. The extensive work done on the refurbishment of Bowderstone Cottage, and the Hermitage, strangely enough coincided with the consumption of much ale. The frequent visits to the Scafell bred a close relationship with Bill the publican, and resulted in his donation of a kitchen table, which is still used after 20 years. As long as the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club has the use of Bowderstone Cottage so the frequent trips to The Scafell will continue and, hopefully, the natural enjoyment of the meets will always exist.

Bringing the Bowderstone Hut into the Twentieth Century - Jeff Breen

In 1976 Tom Hammill became hut warden. Tom brought a new urgency to the job and was responsible for the start of the modern revival of Bowderstone Cottage. Tom, a one time shipyard worker turned Maths teacher, gave a new-found humour and practicality to cottage maintenance meets. His humour and friendliness resulted in working meets actually becoming a popular event in the club calendar.

Tom, with his practical eye, saw that the Bowderstone Hut needed essential building from the bottom up. Most club members will not appreciate the amount of work that Tom did, often alone or with a small group of friends. His first job was restoring the water supply from the mine and building a header tank in the garden. His next and most important project was the sewerage system. The cesspit was very old and in a state of collapse, and as a result, was polluting the river. Tom rebuilt this virtually from scratch. The gas system was then extensively renovated and we switched from butane to propane in 1978. This allowed the installation of hot water heaters in both huts.

Halfway through Tom's wardenship a major problem arose - dry rot was discovered beneath the floor of the cottage. Lesser men might have given up but Tom systematically lifted all the flooring and removed affected plasters from the walls. He then filled in the large void below the floors with rubble and finally concreted over the top, and re-plastered the walls. This was a project comparable with the building of the pyramids at Giza, and the Great Wall of China, all in the same weekend. Tom continued as hut warden till 1983 when he retired, leaving the legacy of a dramatically improved hut.

Before Tom rebuilt the water system, it had regularly failed, usually in drought conditions, which meant one had to walk up to the source of supply. This was a horizontal mine shaft, or level, running deep into the hillside high above the hut. The level is usually about one foot deep in water, which is drawn from the mine using a siphon. When the siphon failed, one person had to go into the mine to retrieve the pipe. This was then filled with water outside the mine, and one luckless volunteer had to climb back down the level with his thumb over the pipe and thrust it in the water at the same time as yelling to his mate outside to open the valve. This created a 500-foot head of suction and you had to be quick to remove your thumb, or else lose it. One day this fairly routine procedure was being enacted. Tom was outside and his sidekick, Paul Selley, was inside the mine with the pipe. Tom then heard a loud rumble and turned to see a telephone box sized block of rock and assorted debris collapse across the mine entrance. Panic ensued, but after frantic digging a rather shaken Paul Selley was extricated from his predicament.

It was not long after this that Tom had cause to be grateful for rescuing his friend alive. Our two heroes were climbing Moss Ghyll Grooves on Scafell Crag. Tom took a long leader fall and finally ended up back on the belay ledge with a dislocated elbow. A FRCC team climbing nearby alerted the rescue services. Meanwhile Tom was suffering from shock. Paul, naturally concerned, put his anorak around Tom and tried to zip it up. Unfortunately the zip jammed. Forcing the zip his hand slipped off and he smacked Tom full in the face and gave him a bloody nose. The rescue team, on arrival, assessed Tom's condition, strapped his arm and asked "What about your nose?" Tom replied, "Oh my friend did that".

In 1983 Jeff Breen took over the wardenship of the cottage. Tom's was a hard act to follow. Jeff, aided and abetted by his wife Lynne, decided to attract more members to working meets. Bribes were laid on, such as free beer in the hut on the Saturday night and free lunch during the day. It worked. Punters came from far and wide and meets reached the heady heights of 30 plus members on occasion. Many a drunken climber sustained injury on the Bowderstone in the wee small hours.

Ten days before the November 1988 working meet it became apparent that a new roof was needed for the cottage kitchen. A new roof was costed out on the coffee table, a quick ring around for money from the treasurer and for volunteers and the next day materials were ordered for the working meet.

By Friday night Tom McGuinness had removed all the old slates and had taken delivery of all the materials. Saturday had the job well under way, with the new roof timbers being fitted. Then we had a problem. The walls soaked with damp caused by the leaking roof were crumbling. Soon we had lost about two feet off the top. An urgent convoy of cars was organised and sent to Cockermouth for sand and cement. This was followed by some strenuous aerobic exercise carrying it all up the track. Eventually the walls were stabilised and the work could continue. Sunday saw the roof timbers in place and the felting added, just as it started to snow. The inside of the cottage was like a disaster area and it took a full week to get it back into usable order. Ventilators were installed and the roof retiled by Johnny Douglas on his week’s holiday.

Things quietened down after this and working meets became more routine. It was on one of these meets that the hut warden, after spending too long in the Scafell bar, suggested a moonlit ascent of Central Gully. "Been reading too much W H Murray", someone was heard to say. Anyway the bluff was called and midnight saw a merry party of four well on their way to the crag. It was cold and there was a full moon. Halfway up Tom's crampon fell apart and we spent about an hour fixing it. "Don't worry", someone said the worst that can happen is that we will be bedayed". Eventually we topped out to an unforgettable view of the Scafells by moonlight.

Working on the hut it became increasingly apparent, that if we were to improve it any further then we needed electricity. This had been suggested many years before but was regarded as too expensive.

The club committee agreed that if we could get a new 21-year lease from the National Trust for the cottage then it would be worthwhile to invest in the hut and install electricity. With approval from the National Trust a contract was drawn up with Norweb, with the club to do most of the preparatory work. The cost would be £12,500. Our first task was to dig two trenches from a point in the back garden of the cottage. One cable would go across the track to the smaller cottage and the other about 40 feet to the main cottage. It took a day to dig the trenches, lay the ducting and backfill the trenches. Easy, we thought. By Sunday morning at breakfast all we had to do was knock two holes for cables into the main cottage. Musing over his muesli, Nigel Jamieson said "Jeff, why do we need two holes into the cottage?" Jeff replied "One for each cable you dozy so and so." "Two cables" blustered Nigel, "But we've only laid one!" All eyes turned to Jeff. "Now lads, calm down". Murder was on the cards. The short 40-foot trench was re-dug that day and two ducts laid. Jeff narrowly avoided being buried with them.

Time passed as we waited for Norweb to get planning permission for their overhead cable and transformer. Shortly before the meeting of the Allerdale Council planning committee, we received a letter from the National Trust. They had misread Norweb's plans and had not realised that the installation involved an overhead cable and that it was their policy for all cables to go underground. So the very next day at the planning department's meeting the National Trust actually objected to their own planning application! As a result of this fiasco Norweb then had to resubmit new plans for the system to go completely underground, and these were passed.

Thankfully the National Trust agreed they were at fault and were responsible for the extra work. Then much to our delight an unexpected bonus came our way. As the run of cable was now much shorter than before, Norweb informed us that the cost would now come down to £7,500. This was nearly a third of the original quotation. Luck was on our side.

At last all the major problems were solved, or so we thought. The National Trust relayed the ducting and we asked Norweb to mark out the position of the transformer plinth, which they duly did, but in the wrong place!

Finally Norweb installed the system, tested our internal electrics, and by Christmas 1991 we were connected to the national grid. While Norweb and the National Trust had been chasing each other around in ever decreasing circles, a small band of dedicated people had designed and built the internal electrical system. As these people had little knowledge of these things it was a miracle that it worked. At the same time much of the interior of the hut was improved. Water heaters, a shower, a new plumbing system, and a redesigned ladies toilet area were all fitted.

In 1991 Jeff stood down as Hut Warden and Trevor Iceton took over. Trevor quite rightly decided that members had had enough of working on the cottage and so working meets were scaled down to painting and minor maintenance. Trevor's main task was getting everything back onto an operational basis after the traumas of the installation.

Trevor's first major task was the Hermitage roof. It was old and leaking and the hut team decided it should be replaced, in the summer of 1993. Trevor ordered the materials, and on a weekend of glorious weather a small party set to and removed the roof. By the end of the weekend the timbers and felting were in place and left for the following weekend. The following week tiling was started and the inside of the roof timberlined. The tiling was finished by a professional tiler the next week. The whole procedure went without any major problems much to the relief of Trevor, who thought he was going to be left in charge of a hut without a roof.

In 1993 it was decided that the hut should be maintained by a small group so as to ease the burden on the hut warden; Mike Brandrith being co-opted as hut warden and leader of the hut group. This delegation of duties has so far proved very successful. Also in 1993 John France and Jim Pearson were professionally hired to refit the interior of the kitchen, which they did extremely well, fitting new benches, sinks and shelves, dramatically improving the hut as a result. The next major project will be the replacement of the main hut roof. The hut at present seems to be doing very well, being booked up well in advance and making a healthy profit. This is in no small thanks to the many members and friends who have assisted in all the tasks over the years. May the next 50 years be as successful and rewarding.