Читать книгу The Pennine Way - the Path, the People, the Journey онлайн

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All that was to come. For now, the Pennine Way dropped steadily towards the leafy fields around Thornton-in-Craven and, for the next few miles, traversed a landscape of very small grassy hills known as drumlins, formed out of glacial deposits. A waymarked path peeled off to the left heading for Earby, a mile and a half off the route and an unwarranted diversion for Pennine Way walkers if it wasn’t for the presence of a small youth hostel.

One of the enduring charms of Pennine Way youth hostels is their sheer variety. In contrast to the busy modern hostels at Edale, Malham and Hadrian’s Wall, you also get the likes of Earby, located in the back streets of a former mill town between Burnley and Skipton. The 22-bed, self-catering hostel is a modest and unremarkable terraced cottage and the sole reason it’s a hostel is that it’s the former home of Katharine Bruce Glasier. She was a Quaker and early campaigner for women’s rights, co-founder of the Independent Labour Party, together with Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald, and altogether a remarkable all-round social reformer. After her death, the house was bought with donations to a memorial fund and presented to the YHA in 1958. When the hostel was threatened with closure, Pendle Borough Council stepped in to save the property, then leased it back to the YHA. It’s typical, quirky Pennine Way.