Sutherland is one of Scotland’s most remote and sparsely populated areas. It’s a place of dramatic mountains, silver sand beaches, soaring cliffs, deep caves and rich flora and fauna, which make it one of the last truly natural and unspoilt places in Britain.
It is, in short, the Scotland of your dreams — and a suitably fantastical house and estate has come up for sale in one of it's prettiest spots: Lairg, on the southern tip of Loch Shin.
Savills’s Edinburgh office seeks ‘offers over £2.4m’ for Lairg Lodge and its River Shin Fishings, a compact and highly manageable estate on the shores of Loch Shin, which, for many years has been the treasured Highland retreat of a family from the south of England.
At its heart stands Lairg Lodge, a comfortable, 10-bedroom Victorian lodge built for the Duke of Sutherland in 1879 and set in 184 acres of private grounds.
This is not the home that will attract jet-setters seeking the marble-floored bathrooms and surround sound systems you'll see in commuter belt mansions. It's a home that's full of history and love, quirks and charm.
While the lodge's appearance is breezily, almost exotically antiquated, the place has been very well kept, updated and improved — there are no maintenance headaches, from what we can see, leaving you free and easy to soak in the views from the huge picture windows.
And at the end of each day, after dinner at the dining room table and perhaps a game of snooker, the bedrooms above are big enough to (and currently house) four-poster beds.
If fishing is your sport of choice, you should absolutely cast your line in this direction. The estate operates a successful holiday enterprise based around 3½ miles of double-bank salmon and sea-trout fishing and four additional properties overlooking the loch.
Short-term lets include Phil’s House and Reid’s Cottage, rated four star by the Scottish Tourist Board, which attract repeat visitors year after year.
For sale via Savills — see more details and pictures.
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