We believe that Skiddaw House was built around 1829; the first reference that we have been able to find was in Jonathan Otley’s “Descriptive Guide to the English Lakes”, 4th edition published in 1830, there having been no mentioned in any of the earlier editions.

It was built by the Earl of Egremont, whose descendants later became the Lords Leconfield, as a “keeper’s lodge”; a base for grouse-shooting and for the gamekeepers who managed the extensive land owned by Egremont in the area known as Skiddaw Forest. The word ‘Forest’ does not mean ‘forest’ in the modern usage but is an archaic term that refers to the status of the land as a hunting reserve. Many ‘Forests’ had lots of trees, but not this one – the plantation behind the House is of modern origin having been first planted about 1900.

Little is known of the story of Skiddaw House in the nineteenth century. However the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map, surveyed around 1860, shows its outline to have been remarkably similar to today’s. At least three phases of building are discernable in the stonework so we assume that the initial construction was succeeded by two extensions, all within the first 30 years.

We know that by the late part of the nineteenth century the House was used as a residence by both gamekeepers and shepherds, so it is a reasonable to assume that shepherds lived in the extended house before 1860.

The house was never more than 2 dwellings. The eastern end, which is now the Warden’s quarters, was lived in by the gamekeeper and his family. The western end, now the hostel, was for the shepherd and his family, sometimes with an extra shepherd living with them, and with rooms for his Lordship and the shooting parties. The two dwellings were separated by internal walls and it was only in 1986 that doorways were knocked through.

Canon Rawnsley, a founder of the National trust, visited in about 1900 and mentions in one of his books the hospitality of the shepherd’s family.

Hugh Walpole who wrote the “Rogue Herries” series of books in the 1920s and 30s was a visitor and uses the House as the scene, set in 1854, of a foul murder by the evil Uhland.

This joint usage by gamekeeper and shepherd continued into the twentieth century and up until the early 1950s. Several families reared their young offspring here only to leave as the children came to school-age. The longest service seems to have been put in by Pearson Dalton, a bachelor from Caldbeck area, who came to the House ”for a month” in 1922 and left in 1969 aged 75! He lived here alone for 5 days each week for most of the last 13 years.

Alfred Wainwright obviously had a soft spot for Skiddaw House and this seems to have rubbed off onto Hunter Davies the local north-Cumbrian author and member of the Wainwright Society. Skiddaw House and the grazing lands were sold to a local farmer when the Leconfield estate was broken up in 1957. After Pearson Dalton’s retirement in 1969 farming practices changed and the House, no longer needed, was allowed to decline. Intermittent use by various schools and outdoor groups followed, but it was soon in a poor state.

The House was leased in 1986 by John Bothamley who had already created the YHA Carrock Fell Hostel a few miles away. After much effort and expense (and a chequered history of planning problems!) the building was handed over to YHA and operated as a simple hostel until 2002 when disagreements with the lessee forced the YHA to decline to renew the agreement. By 2006 the House was again derelict but, under an initiative started by Martin Webster, the YHA warden from 1992 to 2000, the House was reopened in April 2007 as an independent hostel under Martin’s management. The old YHA “Friends of Skiddaw House” group was reformed and incorporated early in 2007 as Skiddaw House Foundation, a Registered Charity, with the declared aim of maintaining the House as a hostel in the long term whilst retaining the principles of the YHA.

Your participation in this objective is invited.