YHA (England and Wales) Youth Hostel Profile compiled by the Association’s volunteer archivist, John Martin, 2018-01-01 Litton Cheney Youth Hostel 1937 to 1939, 1947 to present White Cross, Litton Cheney, Dorchester, Dorset DT2 9AT Litton Cheney youth hostel stands at a point at the south end of the village previously known as the Litton Sheep Wash, entirely appropriately, as a tributary of the River Bride runs in a fast flowing channel here. The hostel, an industrial building entirely transformed, was bought from United Dairies (Wholesale) Limited in the names of LA Rossiter and Others, representatives of the South Coast Regional Group. It opened in May 1937. In a fascinating document held in the YHA Archive, another active servant of the Group, Michael F Tighe, reflected on the story of the hostel’s acquisition and early years some ten years later, upon its reopening in 1947. Litton Cheney Hostel – Early History The building was originally erected in 1913 as a cheese factory. There are still those living in the village who worked in it then, and in these days of mouse-trap rationing they are only too eager to relate how the Men’s Dormitory used to hold upwards of a thousand cheeses maturing, with another two thousand in Pitcher’s outhouse across the road! It is of simple construction – a large concrete raft, with brick walls and an iron roof not unlike an outsize ‘Nissen’ hut suspended in mid- air. In its cheese factory days the building had only two rooms, the present Men’s Dormitory and the rest of the Hostel; the floors are all designed with a fall from all sides to one point against the wall to facilitate swilling down, a useful tip for energetic hostellers who are thinking of cleaning up in the morning! With the slump of 1930, the cheese factory closed down and the building was left completely derelict for some years. Then, about three years before the war, Ronald Pascall and Leslie Rossiter, of the South Coast Regional Group, came to the Bride Valley in search of a suitable building for a Youth Hostel. They parted in Long Bredy, one taking the upper and one the lower road; they met at the large heap of stinging nettles which masked the future hostel. Fortunately, its ruinous aspect did not unduly deter them, and after long drawn out negotiations, this eventually became South Coast’s first freehold property at a quite reasonable figure. This, however, was only the beginning of the story. Much work required to be done before the place could possibly be regarded as habitable. From the start, Litton Cheney has been a hostel owing its existence to the spare time work of the Association’s own members. A little construction work was done by professional builders, but most of it, and all the decoration, was done by members of the West Dorset Sub-Group. Apart from a general clean-out and overhaul – itself no mean job after some years of neglect – the building required very little adaptation. A central chimney shaft was built, with an open hearth on one side and an ‘Interoven’ on the other. Plaster-board partitions were erected through the larger of the two rooms to provide rooms intended later for the use of a resident warden, and an outside lavatory was built. The whole building required repainting, and even now there are still members locally who have green paint on their clothing from the first opening of Litton Cheney! When the hostel first opened, it was decided not to employ a resident warden. Instead, Mr Pitcher, who was then still running a carrier’s service from the building opposite, acted as Warden; members could obtain meals in the village. The end room, now used as the cycle store, was then the Women’s Dormitory. The Warden’s quarters in the hostel itself were used as a kitchen and spare dormitory. It is interesting that the warden’s quarters, still in use some 75 years later, were designed, provided and perhaps even built at the outset, but apparently not used as such at first. In 1937 there were beds for 18 men and 15 women, but the hostel was immediately popular and had expanded by 1938, probably into the intended warden’s space. The comment on meals taken is of interest. The postcard reproduced above, posted in April 1950, is rare in the fact that it is of the warden’s home, Mrs Moxom’s, at 2 Grove Cottages. Unusually for such a building, it shows (stylised) a YHA triangle. The cottage is some 600 yards north of the hostel, just west of the village crossroads, and was apparently where hostellers could take meals before the war. Litton Cheney hostel was requisitioned by the army on the outbreak of war up to the end of hostilities. For some time after D-Day the premises were unoccupied, yet not de-requisitioned. When it was released in 1945 YHA were granted compensation of £120, though with the South Coast Regional Group being short of funds and the building being in a state of disrepair it was going to be difficult to resurrect. Working parties were gathered and the hostel reopened on 23rd August 1947. Shortly after this date, MF Tighe, who oversaw the considerable refurbishment, presented as a kind of dedication the following account of the neglect since 1939 and remedial work undertaken by his West Dorset SubGroup team in 1947 to RFC Pascall, President of the South Coast Regional Group and one of the initial adventurers who discovered the site: A Report on the Redecoration and Reopening of the Youth Hostel, Litton Cheney, Dorset June-August 1947 When war broke out in 1939, the Hostel was immediately requisitioned for billeting troops. The equipment was removed to other Hotels, and after requisitioning of Bridport Hostel in 1940 we were left completely without Hostels in West Dorset. Judging by graffiti on the walls, there would seem to be very few units of the British Army (not to mention Americans) who were not represented at Litton Cheney at some time during the War! The Hostel was finally released from requisitioning during 1945. In the meantime, however, Litton, which had had two very successful years of life as a Hostel before the War, seemed to have been forgotten. The South Coast Regional Group had become fully committed with other projects elsewhere, and there seemed to be little prospect of Litton reopening. As might be expected, the Army had left the premises in a most unsatisfactory condition, and there were many who thought that the expense of rehabilitating the Hostel would outweigh its use, especially owing to the short distance from Bridport, which was being developed as a large fully-controlled Hostel. However, the West Dorset Sub-Group considered that it would be worthwhile going ahead with Litton, and in July 1946 prepared a report on the condition of the building. This report, signed by Mr J Bridle as Chairman, Miss C Flay as Secretary and Mr L Shrimpton as Council Representative, envisaged a 30-bed hostel with a resident Warden, at an estimated cost of £625 on constructional and redecorating work, and there can be little doubt that, if it had been practicable, a very fine hostel would have resulted. The Regional Council, however, after much discussion, found itself unable to incur the extra expense. There for the time being the matter lay. At the Annual General Meeting of the Sub-Group, in January 1947, a resolution was passed unanimously, calling on the South Coast Region to endeavour to reopen Litton Cheney and make further recommendations. This Sub-Committee, consisting of the Regional Secretary, Miss M Bray, and Messrs P le Breton, L Shrimpton, MF Tighe and E Wilkins, met at Bridport on April 20th 1947, visiting Litton the following morning. It was at this meeting that the lines upon which the Hostel finally reopened were decided. The general plan was for a 30bed Hostel, for self-cookers only, without a resident Warden, relying on the possibility of obtaining the services of someone in the village to act as Warden. It was thought that Mrs Moxon would possibly be able to take the job on. A schedule of repair work was prepared, and the Committee reported to the Regional Council, who then called for estimates. The matter came up before the Regional Council once more at its meeting at Cranborne on June 7th 1947. It was decided that the reopening of the Hostel be approved, and the details were left in the hands of the West Dorset Committee, subject to a maximum expenditure of £200, certain objections on the grounds of sanitation and dilapidation having been answered satisfactorily. From this point the time for argument had ended, and the responsibility lay in the local members to set the Hostel on its feet once more. The West Dorset Committee lost no time in getting down to the job. The week after the Council meeting they settled the question of Wardenship with Mrs Moon, arranged for Mr Fry of Litton Cheney to carry out the necessary building work and appointed the present author as Foreman of the Working Parties. At first sight the job struck us all as almost more than we had bargained for. The plasterboard was nearly all broken down, paint was peeling, the outside lavatories were in ruins, and the whole building gave an impression of dirt and decay. The present cycle-shed had been left untouched apart from being cleaned out, and is a very fair example of the state of the whole building in June 1947. In addition, the outside was overgrown with weeds, the ditch was choked, and the hedge reaching over the walls. Obviously, the structural repairs were the first to be put in hand, and Mr Fry started work immediately. This entailed the repair of the outside lavatories, and installation of Elsan closets, the repair of a crack in the south-east wall, the replacement of over half the plaster boarding of the interior walls, the reglazing of several windows and the cutting of two new ones, the entire rewiring of the electrical system (the Army had left the old wiring hanging in festoons from the ceiling) and the installation of two new sinks, with the necessary plumbing. At this point tribute must be paid to Mr Fry for the manner in which this work was done. It was most refreshing, after experience of other Hostels where building work had been held up for months, to find that here the job was done within three weeks with no headaches of any kind. At the outset I prepared a programme of work, in which I made allowance for both bad weather and delays on the part of the builder; thanks to Mr Fry and the Clerk of the Weather, this plan was never referred to again. For the first three weeks after work had started, there was little the Working Party could do, until the professional builders had finished making their mess. A few of us busied ourselves clearing ditches, lopping hedges, and shifting the mountains of rubbish lying around the place. The Interoven alone yielded a large bin full of sticks, rubble and soot. By the end of June, matters had reached the stage where it was possible to bring over some spare bedding from Bridport Hostel, and from then on, at least one member, usually more, spent Saturday night at the Hostel. Jack Bridle brought over paint and distemper, together with step-ladders, planks and the remaining paraphernalia of his trade. Mr Fry stepped into the breach with the loan of more brushes and of his ladders, and work started in earnest. That first week-end we distempered the Men’s Dormitory and started the Women’s. The following weekend the distempering was getting so well advanced that we even began to talk of an opening date – rather rashly, some of us thought, when we looked at the shambles still prevailing, and the paint peeling off the roof, which still hadn’t been touches. However, we said we would have it all done for August 23rd. Towards the end of July the painting of the roof began. This was probably the most ambitious portion of the whole operation; lines were passed across one side to the other, and the majority of the roof tackled from them – the lower portions, where the camber was too steep to provide a foothold even with this help, were attacked from ladders, which often rested in peculiarly unstable positions. On one occasion the attentions of a bull in the next field threatened to prove embarrassing to the peace of mind of the painter whose ladder was resting in the hedge. We consider that this bull should be adopted as the Hostel mascot, in preference to the dogs across the road. By August Bank Holiday, we were beginning to see daylight. The working party turned out in force that weekend, and at one time we were almost held up because we had more workers than we had tools or paint. However, everyone seemed to find something to do somewhere. Equipment was now becoming the chief headache. Some beds and bedding were surplus at Bridport, and others were sent from Southampton, but even now we still have not our full complement of blankets and pillows. Furniture was almost unobtainable, until Mr Wilkinson managed to find a few chairs and a table. A week or so later we were able to get more chairs and tables, together with a very large dresser, at an auction in Bridport; with these, and crockery and so on bought locally, the Hostel rapidly began to look a real home from home. By this time members were beginning to drop in, Bridport was still not fully open, owing to various holdups, and surplus travellers began to come to us. To their credit, they entered into the spirit of the game and wielded paint brushes, brooms and pails with the best. On Sunday, August 17th, the last of the painting was done, apart from one token piece to be left for the opening weekend. This was the eighth consecutive weekend when members of the Working Party had been at Litton – in addition a bit of midweek work had been done, and some of us had been over on odd days before. On a conservative estimate, something like 450 manhours were given voluntarily by members of the Party – and Production per Man Hour was very high for amateur labour. The next weekend, the Hostel was officially reopened by the President of the South Coast Region, Mr RFG Pascall, and a very successful opening party was held, at which the Hostel was filled for the first time since the war. Even now there is still work to be done, but we hope to have everything completed for next season. Even now, we have all been struck by the enthusiastic reception the Hostel has had from members since its reopening. May the YHA soon have many more like it. Mr Tighe concluded with an expression of thanks to: Mr Fry, of Litton Cheney, for his help throughout. Mrs Moxom, the Warden. Mr Shave, of the ‘White Horse’ for his unfailing hospitality to the Working Party. Jack Bridle, who obtained, mixed and transported a phenomenal amount of paint and distemper. The inhabitants of the village of Litton Cheney, for the interest and courtesy they have extended to their new, and slightly deranged, neighbours. Photograph by stalwart volunteer work-party member from Bristol, Fred Blampied, on 1st August 1949, shows a party of young women to the rear of the hostel. No safety railings are in place, and the wooden-planked bridge over the leat seems precarious. The end wall of the hostel is still clad in corrugated iron, and the exaggerated overhang is apparently buttressed by only one support (nowadays there are three). YHA Volunteer David Greengrow has detected a hollow at the side of the leat where an axle may have been journalled as part of a small apparatus to power dairy machinery in the nearer building in its former life. The low wall to the right of the main building has since been demolished. On 29 February 1952 the hostel came into the full ownership of the National YHA when the freehold of Land and Buildings at Litton Cheney was transferred from LA Rossiter and Others to the Youth Hostels Trust. Pat Packham was on a cycling tour in April 1964 when she encountered a crowded Litton Cheney hostel: “I had to sleep on a camp-bed as the rest of the women’s beds were occupied by a school journey party”. As for wardens, Mr Pitcher and Mrs Moxom of the early days have been mentioned; the meals arrangement with Mrs Moxom lasted until 1951. From 1952 wardens were providing meals from the hostel, and a little camping was allowed for a time. By 1961, Mr D Sharman was in charge. Pete Chubb took the reigns the following year, and held them for a very long time – he was still warden in the mid 1990s. Duncan Simpson writes of him: Pete Chubb was the manager there for many years. He operated a short order menu, long before anyone else dreamed of doing so, on his own, with local foods, fish, lamb etc. He was a brilliant warden/manager. Pete lived in a room off the kitchen, and had an outside toilet and bathroom. Many also remember Pete for his relaxed dress sense. Philip Stacey recalls: We only remember those wardens like the one at Litton Cheney who always wore tight leather shorts. In 1996 Litton Cheney became a self-caterers’ hostel, reconfigured with smaller bedrooms, two at the north end (formerly the female dorm) and four at the south (male), all with wash hand basins. The kitchen was modernised. The capacity was reduced to 24, and later 22, though the overnights doubled. General refurbishment was carried out at this time and most of the windows were replaced with uPVC double glazing, replicating the original unusual fenestration pattern in the main section. The refurbishment may have been spurred on by the closure of Bridport hostel. The warden’s quarters remained and have subsequently been put to use for a volunteer manager.

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