A bit about the history of our journey to Speuran Mòra

For many years we planned to retire to Scotland. After a chance visit to Sleat on the Isle of Skye we knew we had fallen in love with it; this was to be where we would settle.

The search for a property that struck the right note took 2 years. It became available very suddenly and we flew up the next day from Buckinghamshire! Within 24 hours the deal was made. We had a chunk of Scotland in our grasp.

It took a further 3 years to sell our existing house, meet with architects, plan and finalise the design and complete the building. It was a painfully long time as we were not getting any younger! This included an eighteen month stay in rented accommodation at Elgol, a beautiful part of Skye, but still not home.

Another interesting design feature of the house is that the slope of the roof parallels the slope of the hill. This is augmented by the larch cladding which has weathered to its natural grey colour.

Our first night in a still incomplete house reeking of paint was on Bonfire night 2014. It was cold as the electrics were only partially completed. Luckily the loos were working!

The grounds looked like a bomb site; bare earth with bits and pieces of building material and left over lumber, only looking a bit better after the land drains had been dug into the ground. We could do nothing more about the brown empty space of the land as that winter was very wet and windy.

Spring had barely arrived and we got 115 saplings in as well as other, larger trees. These included confers (Douglas fir, Larch, Norway Spruce, Scots Pine), Hazel, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Cherry, Oak, Cherry Field Maple and Silver Birch. Grass was planted and anything green was encouraged. The natural primrose and bluebells were starting to emerge and we felt that the hill was starting to recover from the awful bashing it had taken.