Old Times at the Guest House

(If any of our old time guests, or anyone else, would like to add their reminiscences (or corrections) to this page their contribution would be very welcome - write or email to Low Nest)

In 1921 Matt and Maggie married and took over the tenancy of Low Nest Farm from Maggie's uncle John (or Thomas). In 1922 their daughter Elsie was born.
Elsie never liked her name. Apparently it had been agreed she would be named Mary Jane but Matt was not included in this consensus, he thought Mary Jane was an awful name and exercised his paternal prerogative at the registry office.

With the encouragement of her Aunt Sarah Jane, Maggie started providing bed and breakfast accommodation to supplement the farm income. She was the first farmers wife in the area to offer guest accommodation but she was soon followed by others. The B&B was very popular (business spread by word of mouth) and so the four bedrooms in the house were soon supplemented with five 'chalets' in the surrounding fields.

The chalets were substantial double-walled wooden constructions which were charming and surprisingly comfortable in the summer.

They lacked en-suite facilities but then so did the bedrooms in those days. Sanitation was by means of chamber pots under the bed and ablutions were facilitated by jugs of hot "running" water brought by Matt who used to run round with them first thing in the morning.

People in the more secluded chalets were sometimes known to roll naked in the grass in the early morning - taking a 'dew bath'.

Photo
of a wooden chalet, raised on wooden piles at the front due to the slope of the ground,
with a boy in shorts posing in front while his mother looks out of the window above

For the first twenty five years sanitation consisted of an earth closet and the wash-house with a set-pot boiler in the corner for hot water. It was possible to take a bath of sorts in the set pot or in a dolly tub or a tin bath.
The E.C. is still there. Like most ECs in the area it is a two-seater - it accommodates two people side-by-side.
It was not until 1947 that these facilities were supplemented with a bathroom and WC extension to the rear of the house for the benefit of guests who were becoming increasingly sophisticated and demanded baths, hot water on tap and toilets that flushed.

About 1927 Elsie started attending primary school. She would walk across the valley and up to the school which was next to St. Johns in the Vale church. The school is now a diocesan youth centre. School photo circa 1931.

Maggie provided not only Dinner B&B for up to 30 guests but also lunches and afternoon tea for passing trade (it was like a zoo according to Margaret). The season was shorter in those days - from about Whitsuntide until the end of September and the hotels and guesthouses had to make the most of it. However Margaret remembers her mother also opening for guests over Christmas. Labour was cheap then and Maggie had 3 or 4 maids to help her just as Matt employed 3 or 4 farm-hands to work the farm. Most of the maids and men came from West Cumberland - the men were glad to get away from the coal mines.

Giving over all the main bedrooms to the guests meant that accommodation for the family and servants was limited. The live-in maids lived up the 'back stairs' - this was part of an adjacent barn converted to provide a large kitchen downstairs with two bedrooms above. Matt and the farm-workers slept on beds in the 'garage' - this was a barn that housed the farm carts and the cars of those rare affluent guests who had such things.
Maggie used to sleep on a mattress on the dining room table (hence the 11pm 'curfew')
Margaret recalls sleeping in a hen-house at one point (admittedly it was a new and unused hen-house)

The maids and hired help were treated as part of the family. Everybody ate the same, family, guests and servants alike.
Matt used to tell stories of some miserable mean old farmers. He used to say Granny Allison (Sally Cartmel) was very good to her help and the food was always good there. So Maggie carried on the tradition.
[It is quite likely that Matt would have worked at Dancing Gate, Joe and Sally Cartmel's farm, before he married their daughter]
During the depression years there were a lot of tramps on the roads, people out of jobs and roaming the countryside. Matt and Maggie always gave them food. The only thing Maggie was scared of was them sleeping in the barns and setting the hay on fire by smoking.
We did sell cider at one time and also photo postcards of the farm and the area around. Everyone who came went hiking, come rain or shine so for a long time there were sopping wet clothes hanging in the kitchen, wet shoes went on the mantlepiece. It got to be like a steam bath in there.
Everybody worked hard (not the guests of course) but Maggie worked hardest of all. By the time Elsie took over the help was expensive and she didn't like telling people what to do, so she finally did it all herself which was way too much for anybody. First cutting down to Dinner B & B and then to B & B.

In those days very few people had cars and most visitors came by train or charabanc from the industrial conurbations of Tyneside, Lancashire and Yorkshire. The bus services were cheaper and more frequent then and also many people brought their bicycles on the train to Keswick.
Maggie would arrange a coach to bring the new arrivals from the station each Saturday night.
Transport for Matt and Maggie was by bicycle or horse and cart.

When livestock went to market they were herded 'on the hoof' to the railway station at Keswick and went by rail to the auction markets at Cockermouth, Troutbeck or Penrith. These auction marts were located conveniently close to their respective stations. At Troutbeck there is no town or village next to the station - just the auction pens and the hotel for refreshment afterwards.

The guesthouse continued to flourish during the war because the countryside of the Lake District was seen as a safe haven by people from the south and east of England or from the industrial towns. However the shortage of manpower, food and materials caused some difficulties. The food shortage was ameliorated by the fact that the farm produced much of the food that the guesthouse needed e.g. eggs, bacon, milk, butter, pork, chicken, goose, turkey, fruit and vegetables, barley. It also helped that not all of this food was declared to the rationing inspectors. for example some hen houses were hidden away in corners of remote fields. Sides of bacon and other produce was easily hidden away in dark corners of barns.

The shortage of bought-in foods such as sugar, flour, salt was lessened by the fact that Maggie, like many people in rural areas routinely kept a substantial stock of durable foodstuffs. In Maggie's case about two years supply at the start of the war. Also one of the regular guests happened to own a oatcake factory and helped out with supplies of sugar and flour.

From 1941 Matt and Maggie played host to a pair of evacuees from West Hartlepool, Charles and his cousin Dennis. Their parents and grandparents had been guests at Low Nest previously and their grandmother, Mrs Sellars had helped out at Low Nest for one or two summers.
(It was not only Londoners who were at risk from the luftwaffe and suffered evacuation. Hartlepool, an industrial town in the north east, just across the North Sea from Germany, was a prime target). All the farms and all of Keswick hosted evacuees. The whole of Roedean school was relocated from Brighton to the Keswick Hotel. Margaret remembers that she got head lice as soon as the evacuees arrived at Legburthwaite school.
Reminiscences of an evacuee from Newcastle to Keswick.

Surprisingly perhaps, although the farm proved to be safe from the luftwaffe it was not entirely remote from the machineries of war. A field-gun was positioned in the top field manned by a platoon of soldiers who lived in an encampment of tents This was because the A591 was a main route to Scotland and the Clyde shipyards. Today's main route up the M6 or A6 over Shap summit was (and still is) liable to closure by snow.( One might question whether there was much left to defend if the German army had advanced this far north).
The last remaining traces of the war can be seen partly buried in the turf near the path up Walla Crag above Rakefoot farm. These are a grid of iron bars which were intended to help tanks to climb the steep incline up to a commanding position on Walla Crag overlooking Keswick and the roads and railway to the North and East.

As the war progressed German and Lithuanian POWs appeared and were put to work on the farm.

The POWs sent to farms were mostly farmers sons. The farmers could choose the ones they liked

This is how Carl came to Low Nest.

The POWs were guarded by the home guard. It was a very boring job and the guard often slept or joined in with whatever work was in hand.

By the end of the war the POWs were trusted to work unguarded.
(as right). They were not repatriated until 1947.

photo
of Matt, arms akimbo, posing by a horse-drawn mowing machine flanked by two strapping youths. All three
have sleeves rolled up and are wearing rough work trousers and boots. Matt is also wearing a flat cap
and unbuttoned waistcoat

Matt haymaking with POWs Jan and Carl. August 1945

Carl came from Billerbeck near Munster in North West Germany and Jan de Boer came from the German part of Friesland on the North Sea coast.

The POWs were housed in disused turkey sheds at Moota, about twenty miles north of the farm. Before coming to Low Nest Carl worked at various farms at Torpenhow and surrounding areas. He had fond memories of one particular farmers wife who taught him to speak English.
Actually, to be exact, she taught him to speak Cumbrian which is not quite the same. His Cumbrian/German accent was baffling to strangers who sometimes thought it was Scots.

During all this time the farm was without electricity or mechanical transport (although it did have a telephone from 1934 (Tel.. Keswick 378) since this was useful for taking bookings for the guesthouse). However most bookings were made by correspondence, Maggie would sit up late into the night writing letters.

Carl lead Bobbie and Dick into the Stable
All the farm machinery and implements were powered by Bobby and Dick, the shire horses. Lighting was by candles or by gas lamps running off bottles stored in the barn. Outdoors in the barns and byres 'Tilley' paraffin lamps were used. Entertainment was provided by a wireless powered by a bank of lead acid batteries which were taken into town to be recharged. It seemed anomalous that it should be called a 'wireless' when it was firmly attached to an enormously long and thick wire aerial that stretched up to the roof and then all the way to the ash tree at the far end of the garden. Cooking was done on a large open-fire range with two ovens on each side. Heating in the guest rooms, including the bedrooms, was by means of open fires although the bedroom fires were rarely lit.

In 1947 the open-fire range was replaced by a four-oven 'Aga' cooker which required special 'anthracite' fuel and had a separate boiler attached (which burned any fuel) and provided the hot water for the newly installed bathroom. (This Aga is still in use although in need of some refurbishment)
Although the washhouse was no longer used by the guests the family and farm lads still washed and bathed in there and it was still used for doing the laundry. The set pot boiler was a cast iron pot of about fifteen gallons capacity set into a square brick and concrete structure with a coal fire underneath. Hot water from the set pot was put into dolly tubs and the laundry was agitated in the tubs by means of possets. a posset is a closed brass cone about 8 inches in diameter, perforated and mounted on a four foot pole.
The washing then went through the mangle and was hung out to dry on the drying green (or in the kitchen if the weather was inclement as was often the case.)

Fortunately the amount of laundry was reduced by the fact that the guests would stay for whole weeks at a time, one-night stays were unheard of.

About this time the washing was out-sourced to the Laundry in Keswick. The laundry van used to come once a week to pick up the wicker hamper of used linen.

It was not only the laundry van that came to the farm. Shopping in those days was easier in that the more important shops came to the farm. Two different butchers came on Tuesdays and Saturdays, two different greengrocers came on Mondays and Thursdays and the baker came on Wednesday and Saturday (although in the early years the farm baked its own bread).
Miscellaneous items could be delivered by bus. The shop-keeper would take it to a bus stop in the town and the bus conductor would drop it off at the lane-end.

In 1952 Carl and Elsie married and Anthony was born

Carl's situation as a German married to a local woman, so soon after the war was a bit awkward.

He was careful to speak only English to his children. Generally he was well accepted by the local farmers who saw him as a young farm lad much like their own.

Some of the townspeople were less accepting although Carl did not have much to do with them.

Photo of
Anthony, age about four, wearing shorts, wellington boots and an embarrassed expression

About this time Carl and Elsie acquired a 'Velocette' motorcycle and Margaret acquired a 'James'. These were the farms first mechanical transports.

1954 was the year that electricity came to valley and to the farm. At first nothing much changed except that electric lights were installed and a mains powered wireless. Other appliances were too unfamiliar and expensive.

The 1960's

1959/60 was an epoch of change, The farm came up for sale and, as sitting tenants, Matt and Maggie bought it on behalf of Carl and Elsie and loaned them the money. The price was £3600. Matt and Maggie nominally retired to a house in Keswick.

Of course Matt did not last long in the town house, he was soon back on the farm doing any odd jobs and talking to the visitors.

Maggie also hated living in 'the box' as she called her town house and came back to Low Nest to help out in the season.

This was also about the time we said goodbye to the horses, Bobby and Dick and said hello to Fergie, the little grey tractor.

Carl soon started to make changes, building the new milking parlour and installing the new fangled electric milking machine.

Elsie invested in a dishwasher. This was a significant change since up until then the visitors had continued with Maggie's war-time tradition of mucking in to do the washing-up after dinner. The dishwashing was done in the 'separator house'* with half a dozen volunteers gathered round the large tin baths on the table and more ferrying the plates and cutlery from the dining rooms. They used to enjoy the conviviality of it.

The whole atmosphere of the house was convivial, it was like a house-party. The large number** of guests, the fact that they all stayed for one or two weeks, their being accustomed to making their own entertainment, their determination to enjoy possibly their only holiday of the year, the absence of television and the lack of transport to go out on the town, all contributed to the friendly and convivial atmosphere.

After dinner the visitors would always play card games and, if the weather was fit, in the long summer evenings they would play cricket or rounders in the backfield.

* The Separator House housed the milk separator, used for separating cream from the milk, and the butter churn.

** some of the bedrooms and chalets slept 3 or 4 so the maximum number of guest at Low Nest was 25; however some guests were also farmed out to High Nest and more slept in a caravan*** in the top field so there could be thirty people or more at dinner.

*** this was the old days so this was not your modern caravan made out of ticky tacky - it was a proper horse-drawn gypsy caravan with a wood-burning stove and wooden spoked wheels with solid-rubber tyres.

In 1964-65 Carl continued the building work by demolishing the "Back Stairs" and rebuilding what is now the farmhouse. In 1965-66 the back part of the guesthouse was rebuilt. The front part of the guesthouse is still partly original with stone walls that are up four feet thick in places (including a 'priest hole') and slate flags on the floor. The new ground floor bedrooms also have slate floors but these have the benefit of under floor heating.

In 1967 the celebrated American writer and naturalist Edwin Way Teale stayed and was kind enough to devote a whole chapter of his book 'Springtime in Britain' to Low Nest (and surrounding area).


In 1957 Angela was born	In 1959 Alison was born