What a location!
Carlisle Diocesan Youth Centre is, unsurprisingly, a church run activity base four miles from Keswick in the Lake District. Two sizeable buildings, the School House and the Chapel House, sleep 25 and 14 respectively. Each offers a large communal kitchen and dining rooms, bunk style dorms arranged in small groups. The School House has a rather wonderful viewing room with acres of glass because you will want to enjoy the view.
Large, these buildings may be but they are dwarfed by the landscape. The Youth Centre is way up a tree-lined private lane and hugs the side of the mountain. High Rigg rises behind in billowing great granite, a shape echoed across the valley in the surrounding mountains. The hill farms with their hardy sheep and tough rugged buildings dot the valleys, but the mountains are bare, wild and beautiful.
The centre is available to groups only, but if you’re looking for an amazing location with access to walking, climbing, orienteering, geo-caching or cycling then this should be on your list.