How Stean Gorge: Meet the new owners of Yorkshire outdoor activity centre who are expanding with luxury lodges, paddleboarding and new caves

Tony Liddy, his partner Becca and a Belgian investor began their purchase of How Stean Gorge in August last year and were officially installed as the new owners in March this year, but Tony, who comes from Morecambe, said they are definitely not newcomers.

“I came here fifteen years ago as a freelance instructor after having completed my apprenticeship at Carlton Lakes near Thirsk and having worked at other centres in the Lake District and Scotland. This is a wonderful place that has everyone in awe when they get here and then when they take part in what we do. We just love giving everyone the best time with our varied outdoor activities.

How Stean Gorge is a small, tight gorge of around 20 metres in depth and around one kilometre long with How Stean Beck running at its foot. It features caves, footbridges, narrow pathways and tunnels and the Tom Taylor Cave that legend reveals was so-named as being a hideaway of a local highwayman, although you cannot imagine there would have been many rich pickings for this unlicensed trade in this sparsely populated area.

Tony said the all-year round venue suits all kinds of visitors and that the recent addition of new lodges with log burners and wood burning hot tubs is extending their accommodation season and adding to their activity bookings.

“We now have six lodges that sleep from 4 to 10 people and we are just about to start building the seventh. They are all built to very good specifications. People want that bit more luxury. We do a lot of work with stags, hens, corporates and school residentials and these are already proving their worth.

Keeping the customer satisfied is one element, the other is ensuring the team is too. Tony said he is fully aware of the need to ensure the whole business continues to run soundly and that local people are the key.

“Being in the middle of nowhere, in a rural location, we employ a lot of local people full-time and part-time team.

“In order to make things work for the future we needed to extend our shoulder months to increase our revenue during that time. We already had a camp site but there are not many that will come to camp here in the winter except possibly the more hardened few, but we reckoned that more would come if we had lodges with a bit of luxury like a hot tub.

“We get tremendously busy with lots of stags and hens (parties) throughout the year, but for whom we now have a better offering. Those parties tend to do what we call the Big 5 package, which includes what is called a Via Ferrata (a high ropes course against the walls of the gorge) and then abseiling and gorge walking in the morning, with the abseiling undertaken off the bridge; followed by canoeing and caving in the afternoon. That’s quite a full-on day and so to have your own lodge to go back to makes it an even better overall staycation rather than just a day experience.

Tony said that traditionally How Stean Gorge has done well throughout any holiday period with family groups, and also for schools’ residentials in the summer term, but that now having the lodges they are experiencing a midweek upswing in the autumn and winter months.

“It’s that whole adrenaline rush of doing things outside, whether climbing, canoeing, abseiling, caving or kayaking that everyone likes and if they can’t do it then they can watch from the café with its glass floor.

“My brother Dan works alongside me too. Where we went to school had its own outdoor education department, which was part of our GCSEs. I followed him into an apprenticeship at Carlton Lodge outdoor centre near Thirsk. That’s where we both started off. We both came here and worked for the previous owners Stan & Ann Beer.

“We’ve both had some pretty mad adventures and have climbed in some pretty cool places including one in South Wales with a section called The Long Crawl that had 3 underground lakes and took us a 12-hour trip underground to get to a section called The Far North. We were told more people had been into space than in the section of the cave we had got to.

Tony is now keen to extend the number of activities at How Stean Gorge and what his team offers with other water-based adventures elsewhere in Nidderdale.

“Next year we will be adding more activities. We have bought a fleet of paddle boards, as that is becoming a very popular activity and is so accessible as they can just be blown up. Transportation wise they are also very much easier than canoes.

“We will also have sit-on-top kayaks and we will be upgrading How Stean Gorge as a visitor attraction in its own right.

“We have purchased a new piece of land on the other side of gorge and, planning permission pending, we will be able to put some new bridges across the gorge further up to gain access into that land, which will pretty much double our size and give us access to two new caves.

How Stean Gorge also tenants Scar House Reservoir just across the road from the gorge, which is leased from Yorkshire Water.

“That’s where our water-based activities are largely held. We also organise a popular canoeing expediton from Ripon to Boroughbridge marinas where you can paddle past Newby Hall and if the ice cream van is close enough it has been known that an organised stop-off can be arranged.

Tony and Becca and their team were delighted to have been nominated in the Rural Business of the Year category at this year’s Yorkshire Post Rural Awards and their natural exuberance at the awards evening combined with their natural playground looks likely to see them go one step further in the future.

“We are here to let people experience something that we find really special,” said Tony. “How Stean Gorge is a magical place and absolutely unique in the countryside. I’d encourage anyone to come along and at least try our gorge walk. This is our great little corner of the county that everyone loves.