Our vision
Close links between the new Field Study Centre and The King’s Arms Hotel development will create joint offerings that complement and extend each other’s commercial viability. The combination will encourage tourism and make a stay in Kirby Stephen more attractive for visitors who may previously have passed through on the way to other destinations. Local employment in operational and professional level jobs will be created, as will community-enhancing opportunities for local groups and individuals.
About Upper Eden
Upper Eden is special, unspoilt and understated. From a landform and nature perspective, the largely limestone and glacial character of the Westmorland Dales landscape and natural history are exemplary and of very high quality.
A very special part of England
5 million
annual visitors
18 minutes
average stay in Kirkby Stephen
King's Arms Hotel
Our architects, Manchester-based Editional Studio, have developed a scheme for the site which will restore the inn to include 12 heritage bedrooms and add a further eight en-suite garden rooms for the walking and visitor community, together with a restaurant.
The town sorely lacks a community meeting place. The plan draws together meeting rooms, a studio and a main room in the coaching buildings into a community hub with a café. In addition, the site will welcome some of the 5 million annual visitors to Eden district, of which Kirkby Stephen is the principal centre in Upper Eden, providing education about the area’s heritage and culture, landscape and natural history and inspiring visitors to go out and see for themselves.
Field Centre
The centre will be next to the local business park, at the top of a field giving spectacular views north westward to the Pennines down the Eden Valley and back east across the town and the John Strutt nature reserve and up to Nine Standards Rigg. The field is a five-minute walk from The King’s Arms in the Market Square. It also lies near the famous Wainwright Coast-to-Coast long distance walking route, now designated as a National Trail.
We plan to begin with 40 beds for accommodation with associated facilities to provide high quality residential educational experiences, such as classroom spaces and storage for outdoor clothing and equipment, along with catering infrastructure. We plan to maximise usage and so educational programmes will be complemented by weekday and weekend use by local and national Scouting groups, term time weekend usage and July/August holiday rentals by the week, providing value for money family accommodation.
Supporting activities
During the pre-launch development phase we are initiating a programme to highlight elements of particular interest which will be central after launch. At this stage these include:
An oral history project and the start of whole-project videography with the Kirkby Stephen grammar school.
Photo:© Colin Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0)
geograph.org.uk/p/128802
Local history and archaeology (notably the Romans), with trial pits in the garden of The King’s Arms and a 40-garden dig in Kirkby Stephen.
Photo: Appleby Archaeology Group: Dig Appleby
A historical railway model of the South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway and outreach for the viaducts.
Photo: © Andy Waddington (cc-by-sa/2.0)
geograph.org.uk/p/6516496
An allotment, kitchen garden and polytunnel project on the cricket club’s extensive grounds for mental health, growing experience and to supply the hotel.
Photo: Freepik.com
A farming and land use project with the farming community covering the Rough Fell and Swaledale sheep and lifting the lid on the uplands debate.
Photo: © Vaelta at the English-language Wikipedia
(cc-by-sa/3.0)
Dark skies at Bowber Head Nature Reserve with the Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
Photo: Freepik.com
Get in touch
The impetus and rationale for this initiative is to benefit the community and the wider visitor market in terms of education, enjoyment and sustainable economics. Operationally, this underlying principle of coming from the community for the benefit of the community is given life in the three main ways – we collaborate, we complement and we enlarge the visitor opportunity for all.
We have a number of formal and informal institutional partnerships and we carefully design our activities so as to be forward-facing and progressive and not to duplicate that of others.
If you would like to be involved or you are interested in receiving more information about the initiative, please use this contact form to get in touch.
We'd love to hear from you.