Photo credit: Historic England Archive
One of the few downsides to opening up Upton Cressett to the public – which we have tried to make a ‘community hub’ since the 1970s – is that medieval and Tudor builders had little empathy for the disabled, or those with what we today call ‘accessibility needs’.
That is all about to change as we announce that we are using UK Disabled History Month (18th November to 18th December 2020) as the perfect time to launch a series of projects and measures to greatly improve access and visitor enjoyment for those who are disabled, infirm or have restricted mobility.
Yes, we will be doing obvious things like improving our disabled toilet facilities but we will be going very much further also – so we hope – by making Upton Cressett the first holiday cottage rental in Shropshire to offer four levels of restricted mobility access in the acclaimed National Accessible Scheme (NAS). Run by VisitBritain, this excellent scheme encourages the disabled and less mobile to enjoy a full holiday experience. The NAS helps those with particular mobility, visual or hearing needs find certified holiday accommodation to suit their level of need.
Over the years, we have lost count of the number of times we have had to reluctantly turn away visitor enquiries when they ask about the spiral staircase in the Gatehouse, the width of doors (750 mm is the width for wheelchairs), the numbers of steps, whether we have ‘level access’ though the ground floor, disabled bathroom facilities, wheelchair ramps and hand rails etc.
Following consultation over improving our disabled holiday let facilities with national heritage bodies and Shropshire Council, we now hope to extend our national award winning holiday let offering by turning a former cider house building known as Stable Cottage (originally given permission to be a two bed holiday let in 1987) into a flagship holiday property for accessibility needs in Shropshire.
Alas Shropshire (with 10% of the county’s economy coming from tourism) lies well behind the national average in offering NAS certified disabled/mobility access facilities to holiday makers under VisitBritain’s National Accessible Scheme. Only three holiday properties in all of Shropshire (Eaton Manor, Ashford Farm and Badger Vale Barn) are part of the NAS disability/mobility tourism scheme. But these only offer Level 1 facilities for ‘Older and Less Mobile Guests’. They do not provide facilities for ‘Assisted Wheelchair Users’, ‘Part-time Wheelchair Users’ and the hearing impaired.
Our wish is for our ‘secret county heritage jewel’ – as Upton Cressett has been described by Shropshire Magazine – to be a flagship self-catering rental property approved by the National Accessible Scheme. Shropshire (unlike, say, Herefordshire) has a chronic shortage of self-catering holiday cottages that cater for those with accessibility needs. Our proposed new holiday let will provide facilities for the four NAS level categories described above, including part-time and assisted wheelchair users.
There is, regrettably, currently (as of Sept 2020), not a single NAS rental property in Shropshire that offers facilities for assisted wheelchair users (i.e disabled travelling with family or a carer) or those suitable for ‘guests with hearing loss’. Upton Cressett hopes to fill this disabled tourism need in the county.
‘Our wish is to improve our disabled tourism facilities and embrace a more diverse and accessible tourism guest and their families’ says William Cash. ‘It’s ironic that Shropshire currently falls far behind other Midland counties in providing for certified disabled tourism as in the middle ages Shropshire was known for being a county where sick, disabled and needy travellers (often pilgrims) were well cared for in monastic hospital towns like Shrewsbury and Much Wenlock’. William adds that he wants the ancient house to return to its ‘medieval hospitaller roots’.
The Upton Cressett holiday let business has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by TripAdvisor in 2020 and was previously winner of Best Hidden Gem at the prestigious national Hudson’s Heritage Awards, recognising the best in British heritage tourism.
By offering guests with accessibility needs a wide range of properties where they know they will have wider (750mm minimum) doors, handrail baths, level-access showers, unobstructed wider floor spaces (typically 1200mm by 900mm), VisitBritain says their NAS criteria makes ‘all the difference’ to the quality of the holidays for disabled guests at self-catering properties, as well as B&Bs and hotels.
‘Making the Stable Cottage disabled tourism friendly will encourage multi-generational families to book so that they can bring elderly/infirm parents to travel together with grandchildren’ adds Laura Cash who runs the holiday lettings business.
Offering improved mobility access is also in line with Shropshire Council’s policy CS 16 of its Adopted Core Strategy to encourage local tourism by offering ‘high quality visitor accommodation in accessible locations served by a wide range of services and facilities’.
Hawkes Edwards, the award-winning conservation architects based in Stratford, have drawn up the proposed scheme. After seeking pre-application advice from the council to modify the existing permission granted back in 1987 for a two-bed holiday unit, the advice given was that there was ‘no objection in principle’ although the disabled friendly design is yet to be approved. The single storey extension would occupy the site of a former agricultural building that was demolished around 50 years ago.
‘After around 600 years of Upton Cressett not being as supportive to accessibility/disabled needs as we could have been, we now fully embrace the struggles of Disabled People for Access and we support the principles of Disabled History Month’ adds William Cash.
Disabled History Month sets out to raise awareness of the ‘Human Rights Principle of Access for Disabled People’. Namely, to ‘Apply Universal Design to environmental, communication, educational, occupational, organisational issues to minimise barriers to Disabled People and maximise our participation’.
Disabled History month runs from 18th November to 18th December.