The Leicester Hiking & Hostelling group has historically been closely associated with hostelling for nearly 90 years.  Hostels were first set-up in the late 1920s in Germany and soon after, hostels in England started to emerge.  Hostels were simple, cheap accommodation in the countryside.  The aim was to encourage young people from the towns and cities to visit and enjoy the countryside, taking up healthy pastimes like walking and cycling.

In 1930, the Youth Hostel Association of England and Wales (the YHA) was set up and seven years later, in July 1937, this group was born.  Called Leicester YHA Group, we were affiliated to the YHA so were sometimes called the Leicester Local YHA or Leicester YHA Affiliated Group.

Right from the start, the group has enjoyed hostelling weekends, day walks and social activities and still continues to do so.

Right up until 2017, Leicester YHA Group was active in all aspects of youth hostelling including:

• Governance, being represented on the YHA Regional and National Councils as well as on the Board of Governors, the National Executive and various committees.
   
• Wardening – running hostels where a paid YHA warden wasn’t available.  Wardens were responsible for managing the hostel, including health and safety, providing information and managing emergencies.
   
• Working Parties - Maintenance and repairs including gardening, cleaning and general maintenance. 

During our many YHA affiliation years, we gained first prize in the ‘Best Work at a Hostel’ category at the local President’s Awards for demolishing an unused external toilet block at Dimmingsdale Hostel.  We also won the President’s Award in the same year and were runners up twice.

In 2017 the YHA made the decision to no longer support local affiliated groups and we became ‘disaffiliated’ in 2017.  As a result, we decided to change our name and drop the reference to the YHA in the group name.  Therefore, at the Annual General Meeting of 2018 we renamed ourselves the Leicester Hiking and Hostelling Group.  A name that reflects what we still do nearly 90 years later.