Colomendy: History, School Camp Folklore and 2026 Sale

Built in 1939 to shelter Merseyside children from wartime bombing, the 106-acre camp at Loggerheads introduced more than 350,000 pupils to rural North Wales, wooden dormitories and the final-night disco. Following the collapse of its private operator in 2025, Liverpool City Council is marketing the estate to commercial buyers to secure its future.

Colomendy sits near Mold in Denbighshire, roughly 33 miles west of Pier Head. For over eight decades, the site functioned as an informal rite of passage for Merseyside primary and secondary schools. A week at the camp meant shared bunks, local folklore, countryside education and the social rituals of living alongside classmates away from the city.

The estate has stood closed since January 2025, when operating company Kingswood entered administration. With Liverpool City Council paying roughly £600,000 each year to secure and maintain the empty grounds, the local authority placed the 106-acre freehold on the commercial property market in summer 2026.

A 1939 wartime refuge: Evacuation and cedar huts

Colomendy was established under the National Camps Act 1939. As the risk of war increased across Europe, the British government created the National Camps Corporation, an independent public body tasked with constructing 31 residential camps across rural England and Wales.

The sites served a dual purpose:

• Peacetime open-air holiday schools for urban pupils
• Emergency evacuation centres in the event of air raids on major industrial ports

The Loggerheads site was designated specifically for Liverpool. Built beside the River Alyn, the original camp was laid out using Canadian red cedar timber for the dormitories, dining halls, ablution blocks and classrooms. When the Liverpool Blitz began in August 1940, hundreds of city school pupils were evacuated to Colomendy, living and studying on site while air raids struck the docks 30 miles away.

For many wartime children, the stay lasted several years rather than a single term, establishing the camp's permanent municipal connection to Liverpool.

Camp traditions: Split dormitories, Peg Leg, football and the last-night dance

When Liverpool Corporation (now Liverpool City Council) purchased the freehold outright in 1957, Colomendy became a fixture of the school calendar across Merseyside. For pupils who had never travelled outside their local neighbourhoods, a residential week in North Wales combined structured field trips with a distinct camp culture:

• Split dormitories: The long, single-storey Canadian cedar chalets were partitioned down the middle into two separate rooms. The divider created an immediate boundary line between groups. Evenings involved defending territory, organizing border raids and managing room inspections under staff supervision.
• The Peg Leg ghost story: The legend of Peg Leg was passed down through decades of lights-out storytelling. Accounts varied, describing an injured lead miner from Devil's Gorge, a former resident of Colomendy Hall or a phantom night watchman. In the timber dormitories, the settling of floorboards and the scrape of branches against cedar siding in the wind were regularly blamed on the sound of a wooden leg tapping along the exterior veranda.
• Fixtures against unknown schools: Week-long bookings often brought schools from different districts of Merseyside or neighbouring boroughs onto the same grounds. Impromptu football matches on the sloping, waterlogged fields were played with serious competitive intensity. Playing against an unfamiliar school side on wet Welsh turf was treated like a cup final before both squads walked back to the dining hall for evening tea.
• The final-night dance: The social culmination of the week was the camp disco held in the communal hall on the last evening. Run on cassette tapes or CDs, flashing stage lights and tuck-shop squash, the event brought together children from different dormitories and schools for their first taste of a formal social night, with end-of-week romances formed hours before packing bags for the coaches back to Merseyside the following morning.

Post-war expansion: Farming, Moel Famau and Glyn Alyn

Under direct municipal control through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, visits followed a timetable balancing outdoor education with practical study:

• Practical agriculture: Pupils worked in the camp dairy, cared for a resident herd of Jersey cattle and made wooden farm implements in the on-site workshops.
• Landscape exploration: Field trips took children into Devil's Gorge, a 120-foot limestone cleft left by 19th-century lead mining, alongside guided nature trails through Loggerheads Country Park.
• The Moel Famau climb: School parties hiked up the 1,818-foot peak of Moel Famau to reach the Jubilee Tower. A persistent joke told by teachers claimed a fish-and-chip shop operated at the summit, keeping tired walking parties moving up the ridge.
• Glyn Alyn School: In 1969, the local authority expanded the estate by building Glyn Alyn, a residential special boarding school featuring five self-contained accommodation blocks.

The 2007 Kingswood lease and adventure activities

By the early 2000s, running Colomendy directly had created substantial maintenance liabilities for Liverpool City Council, with repair backlogs accumulating across the mid-century wooden buildings.

In 2007, the council signed a 30-year lease with commercial activity provider Kingswood Colomendy Ltd, part of the Inspiring Learning group. Kingswood invested private capital into adventure facilities:

• High-ropes courses, zip lines and climbing walls were added.
• An abseiling tower and water-sports facilities were built.
• The council retained the freehold and received an annual ground rent of £81,307, with terms designed to safeguard subsidised access for Liverpool schools.

Over the following decade, booking patterns shifted. As schools converted into academies with independent control over their budgets, many chose newer commercial residential centres across the UK rather than block-booking at Loggerheads, leaving visitor numbers vulnerable to broader market competition.

The 2025 collapse and council holding costs

In January 2025, Inspiring Learning and four associated Kingswood operating companies went into administration. While other activity centres within the portfolio were purchased by outdoor provider PGL, the Colomendy operation was excluded from the transaction.

The administrators formally disclaimed the remaining years of the 30-year lease back to Liverpool City Council. The camp ceased operations immediately, leaving the complex shuttered for the first time since 1939.

The sudden closure created immediate financial commitments for the city:

• Holding costs: The council spends approximately £600,000 every year from corporate contingency funds to provide 24-hour security patrols, ongoing grounds maintenance, utility connections, insurance and business rates.
• Structural condition: Property surveys confirmed the mid-century cedar chalets have reached the end of their operational lifespan. The vacant Glyn Alyn complex requires substantial capital work, and Colomendy Hall, a Grade II listed country house on site, sits in disrepair.
• Continuing occupiers: North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR), which operates an operational headquarters on the land, and charitable organisation Prospects 2000 remain active on parcels of the estate.

The 2026 commercial sale: What happens next

In June 2026, Liverpool City Council appointed commercial property consultancy Newmark to place the 106-acre estate on the open market.

The sale process faces clear planning restrictions:

• Planning limits: The site sits inside the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley National Landscape (formerly designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Denbighshire County Council enforces strict policies prohibiting standard residential housing developments across the parcel.
• Target sectors: Marketing materials target commercial operators in outdoor residential education, eco-tourism, hospitality, conference centres, and health or wellness facilities.
• Local authority oversight: Denbighshire County Council has joined the advisory process to assess incoming proposals against local planning policies.

Liverpool City Council's priority is securing an operator with sufficient capital to refurbish the buildings while maintaining educational or leisure activities. Whether any new owner will agree to ring-fence affordable residential visits for Merseyside school groups remains unconfirmed, as commercial negotiations take place behind closed doors.

Bids are scheduled for assessment through late 2026 before any preferred commercial bidder is presented to Liverpool's cabinet for final approval.

Useful links and sources

• Liverpool City Council
• National Camps Act 1939
• Denbighshire County Council
• Newmark property consultancy
• North East Wales Search and Rescue (NEWSAR)