Scotland still favours the brave.
Whatever happens at the polls, buyers, vendors and estate agents north of the border can’t wait to get on with their lives. Given that, last year, 57% of Knight Frank’s Scottish buyers came from outside the country —a trend that has continued into 2015 —it’s encouraging to see vendors launching their houses and estates onto the market before the politicians have time to catch their breath.
‘It makes even more sense,’ says spokesman Ran Morgan, ‘when you consider that Scottish country-house prices remain 22% below the market peak in the last quarter of 2007. This means that a property in Scotland valued at £1 million in 2007 would now be worth £780,000.’ He adds: ‘However, in spite of higher levels of tax, Scottish property continues to offer good value for money, especially when compared with London and southern England.’
Mr Morgan’s view is endorsed by Andrew Rettie of Strutt & Parker, who, already this year, has handled the private sales of three substantial Scottish estates valued between £3.5 million and £7 million. ‘Whatever is happening at home, there is always international interest in buying a part of Scotland,’ Mr Rettie maintains.
Strutt & Parker (0131–226 2500) for one of Scotland’s loveliest small west-coast estates, the idyllic, 748-acre Kilchoan estate (Fig 1) on the north shore of Loch Melfort, between Oban and Lochgilphead on the coast of Argyll. With its myriad islands, peninsulas and sea lochs, Argyll has thousands of miles of coastline, and the quality of the sailing between its shores and the Inner Hebrides is legendary.
With marinas at nearby Kilmelford and Craobh Haven, and a private mooring in Loch Melfort, the estate—which is also run as a working farm with Blackface and Cheviot sheep—is ideally placed for exploring the waters of the west coast. ‘With its feet in the water and no road between the main house and the estate’s one mile of sea frontage, Kilchoan is sailing heaven,’ enthuses Mr Rettie.
The estate, which has been in the hands of the owner’s family since 1926, surrounds the substantial, stone-built, seven-bedroom Kilchoan House which, although in need of updating, stands in acres of beautifully kept gardens, grounds and woodland, with glorious views across Kilchoan Bay towards Shuna, Luing, Scarba and Jura. Other estate houses include the two-bedroom Kilchoan Barn, a detached former farm building, converted in 1990 and currently occupied by the vendors, and the neighbouring Kilchoan Farmhouse, wh‘ich is let. Three holiday cottages yield a significant annual income.
Another magical element of this enchanting place is Eilean Coltair, a nine-acre island off Loch Melfort, which doubles as sheep-grazing and the most perfect picnic spot imaginable. Two scenic hill lochs at the heart of the estate offer brown-trout fishing and visiting red and roe deer allow for stalking and rough game shooting.
Fig 2: Tranquil Scallasaig Lodge at Glenelg, looks over to the Isle of Skye. ‘Offers over £800,000’
Smiths Gore in Edinburgh (0131– 344 0880) are seeking ‘offers over £800,000’ for tranquil Scallasaig Lodge (Fig 2), 11⁄2 miles east of Glenelg, one of the prettiest coastal villages on Scotland’s western seaboard, opposite the Isle of Skye. Built in the late 1800s as the shooting lodge for the Scallasaig estate, the house stands in 13 acres of gardens, grounds and paddocks, skirted by the Glenmore River which flows gently by. Nearby is Sandaig, where Gavin Maxwell wrote Ring of Bright Water.
The house, flanked by banks of rhododendrons and sheltered by mature trees, has two main reception rooms, two smaller sitting rooms and a jolly farmhouse kitchen capable of seating 12 diners. There are four good bedrooms and three bath/shower rooms on the first floor, with a large nursery suite on the attic floor above. Modern comforts are fully available, thanks to mains electricity, private water and drainage, and oil-fired central heating and hot water.
For the sportsman, Scallasaig offers trout and salmon fishing on a lovely stretch of the Glenmore River and the sale also includes a 999-year lease of the shooting and sporting rights over about 1,917 acres of neighbouring hill, grazings and forestry.
The landscape of Scotland is strewn with the ruins of castles and towers built by the great Scottish families to withstand the incursions of rival clans. The county of Kirkcudbrightshire, in Dumfries and Galloway, boasts no fewer than 84 castles, one of which is Barholm Castle (Fig 4)—seven miles from Gatehouse of Fleet— a traditional Scottish tower house dating from the 15th century and meticulously rebuilt in 2005.
Fig 4: The beautifully restored Barholm Castle has views over Wigtown Bay in Kirkcudbrightshire. ‘Offers over £695,000’.
Offers over £695,000 are sought by Knight Frank in Edinburgh (0131– 222 9600) for the picturesque tower house, originally a seat of the McCulloch family—diehard Reformers and Covenanters in the 16th and 17th centuries—who were particularly strong in this part of Galloway. Barholm is reputed to have been a hiding place, in 1566, of the Scottish reformer John Knox and eventually fell into disuse and disrepair in the mid 18th century.
Now fully restored, Barholm Castle, which enjoys spectacular views over Wigtown Bay, has accommodation on four floors, including a great hall, four bedrooms, three bath/shower rooms, and an upper ‘cap house chamber’ with a door leading to the roof parapet, 41ft high. The tower stands in 23⁄4 acres of established gardens, in which shrubs and borders provide year-round colour.
The Anglo-Scottish border between Berwick-on-Tweed in the east and Solway Firth in the west was an area of almost continuous strife until the 18th century. The Homes of Cowden- knowes were one of the great Borders families and it was they who built the historic, category ‘A’-listed Cowden- knowes (Fig 3) at Earlston, near Melrose, which is currently for sale through Knight Frank in Lauder (01578 722814) and Rettie & Co in Me‘lrose (01896 824070) at ‘offers over £1.775m’.
Fig 3: Cowdenknowes stands in 45 acres of magnificent grounds at Earlston in the Borders. ‘Offers over £1.775m’
Cowdenknowes was part of the barony of ‘Ersiltoun’ (Earlston) bought by John Home of Whitrigs in 1489. The earliest part of the present house is the East Tower, which dates from 1554, but was altered in 1883 to form the main entrance. The enchanting manor house of 1574 was built by Sir James Home, whose wealth and status allowed him to indulge in architectural ornamenta- tion to an extent rarely seen in this area at that time.
Subsequent owners added their contributions between 1784 and 1808, again in 1867, and finally in 1883. Since then, more recent owners have also left their mark.
Cowdenknowes stands in 45 acres of magnificent grounds on the banks of the River Leader, a tributary of the Tweed, overlooking the rolling Borders countryside. Accommodation on three floors includes a kitchen/ dining room, a garden room, a family room and a gym on the lower-ground floor; a reception hall, three main reception rooms and a snug on the upper-ground floor; and seven bed- rooms and six bath/shower rooms on the first floor.
Outside amenities include a two-bedroom coach house, a tennis court, a pavilion, an American barn and splendid formal gardens.
Almost 2,000 years of Scottish his- tory are encapsulated within the walls of Carriden House (Fig 5) at Bo’ness, West Lothian, which stands in imperial splendour overlooking the Firth of Forth, with far-reaching views northwards to Fife, and east-wards to Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, 18 miles away.
Fig 5: Some 2,000 years of Scottish history are to be found in Carriden House at Bo’ness, West Lothian, overlooking the Firth of Forth. ‘Offers over £1.35m’
Currently for sale through the Edinburgh office of Savills (0131– 247 3700) at a guide price of ‘offers over £1.35m’, the mansion, much altered over time, stands within the site of a Roman fort at the eastern end of the Antonine Wall, built in the 2nd century as the northernmost barrier of the Roman Empire, across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.
The original tower house was built, probably on the site of an earlier dwelling, by John Hamilton of Letterick in 1602 and was sold in the late 1600s to the Mylne family of master masons; it was Alexander Mylne who built the west wing. The estate changed hands many times in the 18th century and considerable land- scaping was done in about 1750.
Admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope bought Carriden in 1814 and, in 1818, it passed to his son, James, who made further changes to the house and created the nearby modelvillage of Muirhouses to house his estate workers. From the late 19th century onwards, the estate again changed hands several times, before being bought in the late 1960s or early 1970s by the South of Scotland Electricity Board, which planned to build a power station there, but never did.
The house fell into disrepair and was eventually bought and restored in the late 1970s. In 1996, the present owner, a distinguished geologist, bought the property and converted the west wing into an exclusive guest house, the east wing into his family home and the basement into offices.
Carriden House, listed category ‘A’, stands in some 20 acres of established lawned gardens, magnificent trees and woodland walks. The main reception rooms, especially the study with its fine late-17th-century plaster ceiling, the drawing room with its four south-facing windows and the two large dining rooms are particularly noteworthy.
In all, Carriden has 14 bedrooms, all with baths or shower rooms and served by three separate stairways.