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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Climate
- The Guardian
No electricity, no toilet, no running water – heaven! Celebrating 60 years of the Mountain Bothies Association
'Do you think I'm going to be cold?' asks my friend Ellie as we navigate the winding roads of Mosedale, on the north-eastern reaches of the Lake District, while rain batters against the windscreen. It's a fair question. Both the Met Office and Mountain Weather Information Service are clear – being in the Lakeland hills will not be pleasant this Friday night, due to a sudden cold and wet snap. But there's another reason she's asking. I'm taking her to stay in her first bothy – that's a mountain shelter left open, year-round, for walkers, climbers and outdoor enthusiasts to use, free of charge, with no way to book. Unlike mountain huts in other parts of Europe and the world, they weren't built for this purpose. They are old buildings left to ruin in wild places – former coastguard lookouts, gamekeepers' cottages, remote Highland schoolrooms – before the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) began to maintain them, offering shelter in a storm. And during this particular storm, shelter is definitely needed. Before we left, Ellie was worried about what to pack, and well she might be. Despite a bothy having four walls, a roof, windows and a front door (they range from tiny, one-room affairs to sprawling, multi-bedroom structures), they are still very basic. There is no running water (there's usually a stream nearby for this), no toilet (each has a bothy spade so you can dig your own) and no electricity (tealights and a headtorch are a must), and the one we are heading to, Great Lingy Hut, doesn't even have the usual bothy stove for warmth. Yet it's precisely for these reasons that I've chosen it to be Ellie's first. I know that because of the bad weather it's unlikely we'll have to share with anyone else. We park at the base of Carrock Fell, where the River Caldew is now a raging torrent. It is past dusk; the rain has eased to a mere mizzle and we can just make out the shape of the building on the skyline. With backpacks shouldered we begin uphill, keeping our eyes open for signs of walkers who may have potentially beaten us to it. 'Visitor numbers have definitely gone up in recent years,' the chair of the MBA, Simon Birch, tells me when I speak to him the night before. 'Of course, back in the day they were kept a secret – some old documents I was going through have 'confidential' written across them. But people can't keep secrets like this.' It was in 2009 that the MBA decided to publish grid references to its 100-strong network on its website – despite some internal protests. After that, the 'cat was out of the bag', says Birch. When the MBA celebrated its 50-year anniversary in 2015, I asked and was granted permission to write the first guidebook about bothies – as a love letter to them, rather than a definitive guide. There was a lot of pushback, though. When The Book of the Bothy was published, I experienced online trolling (from MBA members and others), abusive emails, complaints to my publisher and even threats. But at the same time, one of the MBA's co-founders, Betty Heath, told me how much she loved my passion; Birch told me that younger members began to sign up (when there was a real danger of membership ageing out); and now there is even a female thirtysomething trustee. Out of the 105 bothies they currently look after, only two are owned by the MBA. All the others are on leases. 'Ultimately, we could lose all our bothies, if the owners decided to take them back,' says Birch – which proves just how special the network and ethos of bothies is. The hut we head to in the Lakes was originally used by miners at the nearby and now disused Carrock Mine (which dates back to the 16th century). It was relocated to its higher location on the moor as a shooting box. During the 1960s it was leased to the 'Friends' Quaker boarding school in Wigton as an outdoor base and was fitted with a sleeping platform. When that school closed in 1984, it became an open shelter, and eventually the Lake District national park took responsibility for its maintenance before handing it over to the MBA in 2017. We pass the mine workings under a starry sky, so they appear only as silhouettes. We ford the stream with the help of walking poles and mutual words of encouragement. Finally, we reach the door and experience the anticipatory few seconds that anyone who's ever stayed in a bothy will know – when after hours of walking you knock on the door with mild trepidation, to discover if anyone else has beaten you to it. The door swings open. It's empty. We have it to ourselves. 'The biggest change has been the impact that the growing popularity of long-distance trails has had on the bothies,' Simon tells me. 'Some of the spots are incredibly well used, and we now have a sanitation officer in the MBA.' Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion I give Ellie a brief rundown of bothy etiquette. Put candles and the camping stove in the designated area so as not to cause a fire risk. Use the spade for the toilet – well away from the building and any watercourses. Set up a bag for waste. As a countryside girl, she has a good idea of the code – but Birch says a problem the MBA is facing in its 60th year is that content creators are showing people the bothies on social media but not teaching good practice. As such, in a very modern move, the MBA is seeking creators to collaborate with it, to demonstrate responsible bothying. We settle in, heating a pre-made tagine and making hot chocolates to keep us warm. I also fill hot-water bottles. We chat for hours, me regaling Ellie with stories of previous bothy visits – including the time I inadvertently crashed a stag party in Scotland. The wind whistles through the cables that hold Great Lingy Hut down, but despite this, as mothers of young children, we both sleep well away from the madness of our day-to-day lives. Recent figures put the MBA membership at 3,800 – with many more users who don't pay the annual £25 donation to join. We're staying at one of the newer buildings in the network, but Birch tells me there are no plans to take on any more. We enjoy our breakfast beside the window, where a lifting fog offers tantalising views down this little-visited valley. As we leave, I feel hopeful for the next 60 years of bothies in Britain. We pack not only our own rubbish but empty packets and used candle holders left by others. 'I love it,' says Ellie, 'leaving it better than we arrived.' She may have begun this adventure worried about feeling cold but, thanks to the magic of bothies, is leaving as many do, warmed by the whole wild and wonderful experience. For more information visit the Mountain Bothies Association. The Book of the Bothy by Phoebe Smith is available for £12.95 from
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Five-star Exmoor views for £15 a night': a bothy-to-bothy walk along the North Devon coast
Where was Wilhelm of Prussia crowned German emperor? Which year did Ian Botham make his Test match debut? And how long can a sea anemone live? These were the big questions we considered, sitting outside Heddon Orchard Bothy, listening to the river gurgle through the steep valley (for answers, see * below). I had a fat Penguin book of trivia (1991 edition) balanced on my knees, gifted by a past guest who'd written on the yellowing flyleaf: 'This is your only entertainment.' The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. In some ways they were right. The bothy – a 19th-century apple store turned bare-bones bolthole – has nothing. No electricity. No running water – just space for sleeping and access to a loo, 100 metres away. In other ways it has everything you really need. Bothies are more often associated with Scotland. But since 2015, the National Trust has opened a scattering of bookable 'camps with walls' in the south-west, including Heddon Orchard and Foreland (a converted stable). This spring the NT unveiled a new one at West Challacombe, above the seaside village of Combe Martin, where five-star views cost from just £15 a night for exclusive use. Well-spaced along North Devon's Exmoor coast, these three spots make it easy to plan a low-cost bothy-to-bothy walking weekend, using the South West Coast Path or other trails. Both Combe Martin and Lynton (between Foreland and Heddon) can be reached by bus from Barnstaple station, so you don't need a car. And, although wild-feeling, each bothy is within walking distance of a pub. 'The bothies are about getting more people into nature – we're fighting to keep affordable accommodation down here,' said Amy U'Ren, the National Trust's Volunteering & Community Officer for West Exmoor. She was showing me and my husband around the green, gorse-bright slopes of West Challacombe, 41 hectares (100 acres) of former sheep pasture that the NT is slowly working to make more biodiverse. 'It's exciting – we're at the start of the project,' Amy added. 'It's about restoring nature and natural processes: sowing wildflowers, digging ponds, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, using pigs, cows and Exmoor ponies for grazing – all to create a mix of habitats.' So far, 20,000 trees have been planted here. In the midst of all this sits the bothy, an old stone barn freshly fitted with sleeping platforms and full-width doors that fling open to the outside world. The loo is a quarter-mile away, in an outbuilding of 15th-century West Challacombe Manor – a rather more refined National Trust place to stay. But we were more than content. Having toured the sweeping site, we sauntered into Combe Martin for vital supplies – wine and beer – and climbed up to raise a toast atop Little Hangman cliff. It was the early evening of dreams, low sun scattering diamonds on the Bristol Channel, ferocious headlands rolling on either side. Then we headed back to the bothy for a camping-stove supper as night not so much fell as exploded, the moon so bright it cast our shadows on the grass. I didn't sleep well, thanks to my wafer-thin mat and the spine-tingling calls of owls. But what a morning! Dew-glistened grass, songbirds in the blossom, blush-blue skies. It was like stepping into a Coleridge poem. The perfect day for a walk. From West Challacombe it's about seven miles east along the South West Coast Path to the Heddon Valley, and 9.5 miles from there to Foreland Point – a spectacular two-day hike. But we decided to plot a bolder route. We'd parked at Heddon the previous day and then walked to West Challacombe via the coast path, up 318-metre Great Hangman, England's highest sea cliff. Our plan was to follow a different course back, across the top of 349-metre Holdstone Hill, and continue through to Foreland, stay there, then return to Heddon for our last night, making the most of Exmoor's combe-dipping, stream-tracing trails. It sounds tiring and complicated on paper, but in reality it felt in keeping with bothying's adventurous spirit. It was a glorious mix too, combining the best of the coast path – hidden Woody Bay, idyllic Lee Abbey Tea Cottage – with other gems. For instance, though only millimetres from the official coast path on the Ordnance Survey map, the broad higher path east of Heddon, rising towards a Roman fortlet, affords a remarkably different perspective. Likewise, the route into Lynton via Hollerday Hill: here you get a gull's eye lookout over the Valley of Rocks, before a leafy path leads to the remains of Hollerday House, mysteriously burned down in 1913 – some say by suffragettes. We were weary by the time we finally found Foreland bothy, hidden in a cleft with a sea view. Despite being tired, we still hiked the mile to Countisbury's Blue Ball Inn – money saved on accommodation allowed for splurges on dinner. As we strolled there, a low sea mist cast the shore into romantic soft focus and deer grazed in the golden rays. On the return, at nautical twilight, a peachy ribbon blurred the horizon, while the full moon glared like a second sun – no need for torches. It was pure magic, and if we hadn't been bothying we'd have missed it all. Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion I didn't sleep any better, but was still eager for our third day's walk. First we headed east, passing an Australian, also on her third day – though, in her case, day three of a full 630-mile South West Coast Path hike. I envied her journey; she envied our bothies, having wild camped for the first time the previous night. We left her to her epic walk, and eventually circled back west, using the Coleridge Way to take in Exmoor's swollen hills then dip to wood-flanked East Lyn River as it swirled and gushed through its plunging gorge. We had lunch at Watersmeet, a fishing lodge turned National Trust tearoom in a deep, wooded valley where blue tits eat your crumbs, then picked up the coast path again at Lynton, this time following the classic route back to Heddon. It rained briefly, which made the sessile oaks' mossy, twisted fingers seem all the more fairytale. It dried up by the time we climbed the primrose-lined path to the bothy itself. Heddon Orchard is especially popular with families, Amy had said – there are nature trails and a beach nearby, and the Hunters Inn pub opposite. Indeed, sitting outside the bothy with the book of Penguin trivia, I watched Derek, the pub's peacock, peering through the guest-room windows like the most majestic peeping Tom. Then a buzzard soared. And wood pigeons began to coo. And the sun sidled out of the valley, a fascinating slow creep from light to shade. Entertainment? We had it in spades. * Answers: Versailles; 1977; 100 years The National Trust runs bothies at West Challacombe (from £15 a night), Foreland (from £25) and Heddon Orchard (from £30), all sleeping up to four, all exclusive use. Pack for camping, minus the tent
