Review: Lundies House

Why book Lundies House?

For the combination of heart-stopping remoteness (the Kyle of Tongue is the very definition of far flung) and blissful comfort (you will want for absolutely nothing).

Set the scene

There’s no quick way to Lundies. Inverness airport or station is a two-hour drive away – but what a drive. Consider it very much a part of the reason you’re going, not a chore. Heading north from Inverness it’s a rolling scene of heather and hill until a single-track turn-off at Lairg, signposted (pleasingly) ‘Tongue’ – a little village on the eastern shore of a pristine sea loch, that unfurls before you in a vast, silvery façade. Dropping down off the road, the driveway to Lundies (a converted Victorian manse) is lined in silver birch, and lavender. Long grasses. There’s something almost Provencal in this approach, especially as the big solid stones of the Manse at the end of the drive turn out to be more golden than grey, and gardens out front a mass of purple-loosestrife flowers waving against high sash windows: the immediate feeling is one of gorgeous vivacity, intense comfort, warmth.

The backstory

Lundies is the small jewel of the 15 properties across three Scottish Wildland estates, owned by Danes Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen –altogether a vast conservation effort that spans some 220,00 acres of Highland from the (little visited) north coast to the (popular) Cairngorms. Anders has spoken about a fishing holiday to the Highlands he took as a child in the 1980’s inspiring him to eventually make his home in Scotland, and the first Wildland property was Glenfeshie in the Cairngorms (an estate that inspired Sir Edwin Landseer’s painting Monarch of the Glen.) When three of the couple’s children were killed in the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka in 2018, in an open letter the Povlsen’s expressed that it was the ‘magnificent landscape’ of the Highlands that helped the family confront their loss. Attention to detail, atmosphere, craft and colour in Lundies feels especially and profoundly personal - Anne is the interior designer. Three years open, Lundies launch mid-Covid went somewhat unnoticed; it’s still somewhat undiscovered.

The rooms

A former clergy house, Lundies was built in 1842 (Reverend Lundie was an early resident). The walls are as solid as Scottish solid gets: and each bedroom feels gorgeously bolstered. Just a handful upstairs in the main house, all painted in a supremely lulling colour palette, adding to the sensation of being properly swaddled from the temperature shifts of Scotland’s rocky Highland coastline. A few more rooms are situated in what were steadings in a courtyard (the whole place sleeps 16) with a more contemporary feel, more iron and brick, but still plenty of wool throws and sheepskin rugs: you won’t walk anywhere without toes quickly encountering something supremely soft. Ground floor of the main house are four warm, communal areas in which there’s nothing that isn’t gorgeous or interesting; equipped for restoration and relaxation. Tranquil Scandinavian design and bespoke Scottish cabinetry typify the various Wildland properties but there’s something about the paints and fabrics here that compliment not just the silver, north-west Highland light but the sound of Lundies too - the wind in the garden and curlews (curlews!) across the Kyle of Tongue below.

Food and drink

Sensational. There’s no ‘menu’ as such – guests are consulted in advance about what they might like to eat and a dinner is prepared to suit, each element immaculately seasonal/local (most memorable were the chantarelles, like golden coins.) In the kitchen are homemade jars of gem-coloured preserves: damsons, rowan bud vinegar, toasted hay and spruce – everything on your plate is considered, delicious. Best is the luminous little dining room itself, with walls hand-painted by a botanical artist in a shimmering dreamscape of midsummer blossom. Lit by candles it’s quite a thing to behold. And at breakfast the light hits the walls in a way that makes you feel you’re eating inside a bower.

The area

This part of Scotland is so little visited. Coldbackie beach. Loch Craggie. The wreck of a ship called the Old Reaper, rusting away on white sand… To the north the lonely beaches of Sutherland are some of the widest and most startling in Europe. On the many walks circa Lundies are some of the most northerly munros, like Ben Hope. And along the coast, nothing but thistle on peat leading directly down to dunes; you pinch yourself, it’s so beautiful. Because it’s so remote (no shops to wander, no local restaurants as such to try) there is more need for the hotel to provide not just a really comprehensive service but also a feeling tone: you need to want to return there after a walk, to look forward to hours doing nothing but being at Lundies. With its atmosphere genuinely of an intimate country house that is as private or clubbable as the mood takes youm there are no enforced chats between guests; no awkward silences either.

The service

One of the nicest moments at Lundies is hearing the distant clatter of someone lighting a fire in one the sitting rooms, followed by a vague padding off along slate flags into a kitchen where a chef is tuning the radio. There are only a handful of staff – chef, housekeeper, gardener etc - and they will leave you to sit and read or chat until the early hours – no sense of wanting to usher you up to your rooms. In short, they are (fully) present but never neurotic; a near magic trick, and far harder to achieve in the hotel sphere than it sounds.

The spa

No spa as such but bespoke in-room massages and morning exercise yoga classes with a visiting therapist can be arranged. Really, the emphasis is on getting out in nature, and especially in water – they even lend wetsuits to the brave. But to be clear: doing nothing remotely energetic or improving is also fully embraced.

Eco effort

The kitchen uses their own vegetables and herbs, wine is biodynamic, any produce on the plate mostly foraged or locally sourced – all as you’d expect. However, Lundies is part of a wider programme that commits to 'transformation'; a 200 year plan across the (vast) Wildland estates focusing on such things as restoring native trees, and especially ancient peatland. The properties on the estates were mostly formerly derelict, or in need of care – Lundies Victorian manse is a prize example of this. Baldly; Wildland has pockets deep enough to follow through with plans and promises.

Accessibility

The bedrooms and bathrooms in the steadings have full wheelchair access. Note that the scale of the main building is small enough to negotiate for those with compromised mobility – this really is not a hotel of endless corridors.

Anything left to mention?

Families are more than welcome, and children can be very easily worn out on long beach walks or hikes into the mountains. A natural pool for swimming in a stream in the garden will thrill children too. As it would anyone, frankly. A deeply romantic destination, Lundies is actually, truly, a hotel for all, lovers and friends alike. Be sure to sit around the massive iron fire pit at dusk in the courtyard, drinking Orkney gin and (if the time of year allows) watching the summer’s second batch of swallows whirling in and out of the woodstack. Not easily forgotten.