The Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) has added two huts to its national collection, one in the Lake District and the other in southern Scotland's Eskdalemuir Forest.
© Natalie Wilson, Jan 2007
The charity recently took on responsibility for the maintenance of Dubs Hut in the Lake District, a former mining hut squirrelled away in old quarry workings above Honister Pass. It has been used as a free shelter by those in the know for a number of years, and was at one time maintained by the National Park Ranger Service.
Dubs Hut is close to an existing MBA-maintained bothy at Warnscalehead, which is one of the smallest of the Association’s bothies. It is adjacent to a well-trodden path which allows access to Innominate Tarn, Haystacks and other classic Buttermere fells.
A stone-built shelter with a concrete floor and a slate roof, the one-room Dubs Hut is best described as ultra-spartan. It has neither fireplace nor stove, nor even a sleeping platform or cooking area.
Meanwhile just north of the border, two years of hard work by MBA volunteers has resulted in the transformation of an unsafe, near ruinous former shepherd’s cottage at Dryfehead in the in Eskdalemuir Forest (NY170999) into a wind and water tight open shelter. This major project took so long to complete because the cottage had to be substantially rebuilt both inside and out.
The cottage is stone-built with a slated roof, and has three rooms. The next-nearest MBA maintained shelter in this area is at Over Phawhope, some six miles to the north.
© MBA
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