Luxury accommodation near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park
Last week we had a crew staying here and shooting the Autumn / Winter catalogue for Plumo. We did the catering, took them round, showed them all the best weather faded walls, crumbling textures, photogenic outbuildings and riverside vistas and then they got on with it.
I have been trying to get a team photo with everyone who now lives at Inshriach and even on this, the ceremonial first potato planting, we are still short of Brook and Jake. 2014 will be the first year we have had enough interested folk here to really make the most of the Edwardian kitchen gardens and at this rate we will all be eating like kings in a month or two. We will also have loads of good produce to put into the farm shop (when we finish building it).
At Inshriach House we have never really done activities. Between Woodentom and the new crew here all that is about to change. If your idea of a good weekend is some oddball combination of axe throwing, elaborate treasure hunts, a wood fired riverside spa, tasty food and somewhere really unusual to stay then you have probably come to the right place.
The farmyard has been a scene of hectic activity these last few weeks. For the last Insider Festival we built a wood fired hot tub on an arrows military trailer and a wood fired sauna in a very decrepit horsebox but we never had the chance to finish them properly. With the holiday season starting and our fancy camping business going from strength to strength we set ourselves a very short deadline to make them nice. Jon Panniers is our resident guitar maker and all round expert wood worker, just the man to apply strips of reclaimed oak around the tub and a final layer of the bright red gel coat. I set to putting a new window and another reclaimed parquet floor in the sauna and Sam (Jon’s girlfriend) set about the first shed / compost loo transformation by combining a cheap shed with a reclaimed roof and window and its own solar lighting. We had a deadline of Friday afternoon for a guinea pig hen party and on Friday morning our motley convoy finally rolled out of the farmyard towards the march pool. Then we hit ebay for a petrol powered pump to fill it with water, added a tipi as a changing room, put fairy lights in the trees, inset solar lights into the sauna floor and hauled in an ancient land rover to use as the log shed.
Thanks to Ollie who stayed here last week for this fine piece of film making.
Avie-more from Ollie Gallant on Vimeo.
The last 2 weeks we have available on Inshriach House before the peak Summer season kicks in are the weeks starting Monday 5th May and Monday 12th May. We are offering 25% off either full week or weekend bookings on those dates which brings them in at £2100 for a full week or £1575 for a weekend. Email [email protected] for details.
Jon Panniers has been the main man on the Insider build team for the last 5 years and it took me all that to persuade him to move to Inshriach on a permanent basis. Jon is a trained luthier and builder of custom acoustic guitars and can repair and set up stringed instruments. Until we get that business established he is also happy to turn his hand to a kitchen, some shutters, set building or general high quality joinery.
[Read more…] about Jon Panniers – bespoke guitars and joinery.
The badgers used to turn up in the farmyard most days at dusk, intent on wreaking merry destructive havoc amongst the chickens. That was until we trained the chickens to put themselves to bed through a high level hatch. Now the bins and compost and any food we choose to leave out are a more achievable target. This fella must have been snooping around the yard and had fallen into the inspection pit in the workshop. He sat tight and unnoticed in a corner for the time it took to me remove an exhaust and I only spotted him when I dropped a spanner and shone my torch at him. This is not the usual fighty flighty attitude I have encountered from cornered badgers in the past so presuming he may have been down there some time I took down some chicken soup and water and some dog food and then made him a ramp and by the morning both the food and the badger were gone.