In terms of historic stays in the Lake District, Low Wood Bay Resort & Spa is a good place to start.
English Lakes Entry Into Hospitality
The venue’s connections to tourism in the Lake District date back to the beginning of the 1700s, and as part of English Lakes Hotels’ 70th anniversary celebrations for the hotel in 2023, we talk to Anne Cook (nee Berry) about how her family’s entry into the hospitality industry all started.
Post War Tourism in The Lake District
Anne, the sister of Michael Berry OBE and great aunt to current managing director of the hotel group Ben Berry, was fully immersed in the arrangements for the re-opening of Low Wood Bay in 1953 once her family had established itself as the new management team.
Times of course were very different then in the years following the second world war. Whilst living standards were improving, the backdrop was of a country having faced long periods of hardship, shortages of goods and rationing. According to the National Archives, it was only in 1953 that sweet and chocolate rationing ended!
By the early 1950s, tourism in the Lake District was becoming more established as people were beginning to be able to afford holiday breaks in popular places like the Lake District – in many cases with holiday pay for the first time. Factory shutdowns for maintenance would take place at similar times of year, usually late summer, and so the concept of holiday making in the UK rapidly accelerated as society became more affluent.
Anne takes up the story:
"I’m the sister of Michael Berry who worked so hard to make Low Wood Bay and the group’s other hotels part of the scene in the Lake District.
"Low Wood Bay at the time wasn’t open all year round. It was a seasonal venture over the late spring and summer and closed down for the winter months. It would have been unaffordable to open its doors in the winter, a huge contrast to the way hospitality has developed so fantastically well in modern times.
"At the time, my own family lived in Blackpool and once a year we would ride our bikes all the way up to Windermere – some 60 miles in all. Mum would send our clothes and things up by train. It was marvellous fun cycling up – I mean, we knew the route well and the roads were pretty quiet and safe back then.
"I was actually up there just before Low Wood Bay opened under my uncle Norman Buckley’s management.
"It so happened that I was a student and so went up there to work over the summer. I recall it being very hard work actually!"
Low Wood Bay as a classic Lake District hotel
"Norman’s father writes in his diary that they’d been to look at the hotel and thought it was a nice place which could be developed into a first-class venue with great food, accommodation and service at its heart.
"At the time it had about 30 bedrooms and I remember Norman’s wife Betty Buckley made complete sets of new curtains and bed covers to brighten them all up.
"I was there on the morning of the opening, having been doing some fell walking near Keswick. We helped out with various last-minute jobs that needed to be done, not least rolling up our sleeves to scrub the loos out and cleaning the bay windows until they sparkled.
"Later in the summer, in August of that year, with the family connection I went to work up there. We only had a small team of staff, including a gentleman whose ongoing role was upkeeping the venue with painting and decorating and general maintenance tasks. And we had a little windowless room for the staff to use for their breaks."
"It was mostly bed and breakfast service in those early days. We were at work at 7:30 every morning and straight into the kitchen. I recall I was put in charge of the toasting machine which was a horrendous rotating rack that went up about 4 feet high above me. I was constantly singeing my hands as I loaded and unloaded it. And then of course there was loads of washing up to be done after breakfast.
"After that we were up on the first floor tending to the bedrooms and washrooms. There were no ensuite facilities back then and the bathrooms were along the corridor. A running joke at the time was who would get lumbered with sorting out the chamber pots. Not everyone used them but it wasn’t a popular job to clean up the ones which had been employed overnight."
International visitors
"I suppose most of our guests were British at that time. International travel hadn’t really taken off by then but I do remember several exciting occasions with coaches arriving loaded with visitors from America, perhaps wanting to be some of the first from across the Atlantic to see and experience the world of Beatrix Potter and Wordsworth. Not surprisingly, they often seemed a little dishevelled and exhausted from their lengthy transatlantic journeys on arrival, so we served them coffee to lift their spirits and perk them up.
"Every evening we seemed to be in the bar and there was music. Arthur Henderson played the banjo and the guitar, Betty Buckley played the mandolin and we all used to sing – it was terribly jolly. I remember it being a very cheerful place to work and at a time when facilities were a good deal more Spartan than they are now.
"Building the conference centre made a huge difference in taking the venue forward. That was a huge development. The big dining room, now The W, doubled in size. Then the offices and staff quarters sprang up. My children have stayed in the rooms and they love it.
"What hasn’t changed about Low Wood Bay of course is its commanding position on the lake. The marina has been added since the 50s which is lovely and the view across Windermere is magnificent. You can walk up the fell at the back up to Troutbeck. The hotel is in a glorious position and it’s been developed wonderfully. I thoroughly approve!"