Bridges Youth Hostel, a former village school that stood empty for more than thirty years, was among the first properties acquired by the YHA. It later became the first YHA hostel to be sold into independent ownership and has remained in the care of the same owners ever since. From May 2026, after 95 years of service, it will leave the YHA network, but will continue to serve, offering the same high-quality hostel accommodation, that can be booked right here.
What makes a good hostel? Good location and good company plus an undefinable something else.
For me Bridges’ is a favourite hostel and also one of the longest serving hostels in the YHA Network. It has been closed for only two short periods since it was first opened in Whitsun 1931. Only Idwal and Street can outmatch it for longevity.
In April 1931 the Birmingham Region of the YHA announced that it had opened three small hostels, Hampton Loade, Kilkewydd and Bridges, on average, twelve miles distant from each other. The idea was to form a chain of hostels leading west to join up with existing and projected North Wales hostels.
Hampton Loade closed in 1934 and the closure date for Kilkewydd is uncertain, but Bridges, a former village school redundant for over three decades, lives on today.
Originally the hostel comprised accommodation for twelve males and eight females making twenty bedspaces in all, but by 1936 accommodation had increased to allow twelve males and twelve females, a situation that was to remain for the next twenty years.
From the opening of the hostel until 1954 Miss Dora Jones was the warden. At the age of 81, she elected to retire. The hostel was temporarily closed but reopened in 1956 with a doubling of the male bedspace to twenty-four. It was at this time that a plaque was placed in the common room in memory of Hugh Gibbins, an avid YHA supporter, and the hostel became known as the Hugh Gibbins Memorial Hostel.
In January 1969 “The Youth Hosteller” reported that work had been carried out to fit new showers and a washroom, thus obviating the need to equip oneself with a plastic bowl and collect water from the Darnford Brook.
My introduction to Bridges came when I was walking the Shropshire Way. Having travelled to Shrewsbury and walked thirteen miles I was ready for a rest and luckily managed to arrive just as the doors were opening. I could see them open as I walked the last few steps, as the hostel is adjacent to this long-distance path, what a welcome sight that was.
In later years I would often stay at Bridges either for a weekend or perhaps longer.
On one occasion I left work at midday on a December Friday in order to get the last bus heading anywhere near the hostel. This bus service had a destination of The Bog which was about as uninviting as it sounds. The Bog did have a visitor centre but on a pitch dark mid-winter day it was unlikely to be open. As the driver reached the turning circle at the Visitor Centre with the rain lashing down he asked me where I was going. To the hostel, I replied. You are staying on this bus, he responded, and then dropped me at a farmhouse, requesting the occupant to take me on to the hostel, which was done.
When I recounted these events to the warden she said that Mike Boulton of Boultons of Shropshire must have been driving the bus. Mick Boulton had recently acquired the hostel from the YHA and was operating it as one of the very first Enterprise Hostels. This would have been in 1990.
In its own way Bridges had two great survivors. In the common room to the right of the dart board, but only just, was a tall Wedgwood blue vase which looked dangerously placed and made guests wonder whether it would survive until their next visit. It always did. And on the outside of the building, one of the original YHA signs.
Before the YHA adopted the ubiquitous green triangle (or was the black triangle at first?), youth hostel premises were indicated by means of a cut out sign at right angles from the building and having centrally placed the letter Y with an extended downstroke and the letters H and A to either side. The sign at Bridges was still extant in 2024 but may now have been removed. In any case Bridges’ claim to fame must rest upon it being one of the last, if not the last, hostel to sport the cut-out.
Any article about Bridges would be incomplete without reference to one of Bridges’ long serving managers who has recently retired. I refer to Angela Corby. Food was home-grown, was delicious, and came from her allotment at the back of the hostel.
On a personal note, when Angela had just started work at Bridges I phoned the hostel to secure a booking. As required she asked for my name. When I gave it there was a pause. Not the David who visits hostels….? She said. I was amazed to be known.
Happy days!