Highland refuge: Scotland’s serene, socially-conscious hideaway
06.12.2023 - 12:15
/ theguardian.com
As I totter across a little footbridge in the gloaming, the water below takes on a treacly sheen, slithering out to sea in the fading light. Ahead, over marshy tussocks, the outline of a ruined barracks looms out of the mist and some lights flicker on in the little red-roofed cottage beyond it. A bank of rain is chasing me over the bog. It catches me just as I reach the village’s (closed) inn so I turn and sprint back to my holiday cottage, Taigh Whin, as the deluge draws a soggy curtain over the landscape. I’ve come to Glenelg, in Scotland’s north-west Highlands, to connect with nature and it’s seeping straight in.
Fortunately Taigh Whin is the ideal place to shelter. It was opened in June by garden designer Sarah MacLaren and her partner, artist and writer Sophie Howarth primarily for letting out to people working for the common good in Scotland, be they campaigners, carers, community leaders or volunteers, public servants, artists or activists.
There’s a single-story two-bedroom house and a studio-style bothy, and the two properties can be rented separately or together. I’m staying in the larger one, which has a funky custom-built ply kitchen, a drawer full of practical picnic equipment and lambswool hot water bottles but is otherwise light on frills.
“We didn’t want it to be too flash, just really safe and cosy and warm,” says Howarth. “It’s got an air-source heat pump and underfloor heating and there are lovely blankets but there’s no bath salts, no TV, no posh coffee machines. We want people to arrive and feel a deep and simple permission to rest.”
Having recognised a chronic need for respite among those working for the common good in Scotland, the couple set up Taigh Whin as a social enterprise. For a few weeks a year, the property is available as a conventional holiday let, and the income from that supports subsidised stays. Scottish residents or organisations working appropriate sectors can apply through the website and pay half the commercial rate (there are full bursaries for those who can’t afford that).
Though the couple (who both have family connections in the area) acknowledge the irony of buying a second home to help those unable to afford traditional holiday rentals, they believe Taigh Whin can help support those tackling some of Scotland’s social and healthcare challenges by giving them restorative time off. Its name means “gorse house”, a nod not just to the spiky plant that surrounds it but also to its yellow flowers’ traditional use as a remedy for despair. The hope is that guests get to bolster their drained physical and mental health by spending time in nature. In return, the deeper connection to nature that they leave with makes them better advocates for the causes they work