Craigellachie House

Main St, Newtonmore, Inverness-shire. PH20 1DA

Newtonmore Hostel

from the rear of Cragellachie House

Newtonmore Village

Newtonmore and Badenoch from Craig Dubh

Badenoch (The Area)

Glen Banchor - a few minutes walk from the house

• To bring up our children in a safe and unpolluted environment.
• To live in a part of the Highlands that is reasonably dry and midge free.
• To take advantage of the superb recreational facilities the area has to offer.
• To be self-employed and run our own business.
• To live in a outstanding ‘family’ house.

Looking back over the years we feel that we have been successful in our aims. We have made many friends here and have found Newtonmore to be a great place to live. Our ‘wee boys’ are now fine young men of 21 & 24 both living and working in Edinburgh. They grew up in a secure and happy environment, safe to walk to school, go ‘up the back’ onto Craggan Hill to build dens or to sledge on the snowy golf course, without always having grown-ups tagging along.

Cars and houses are commonly left unlocked and in the 16 years the hostel has been open we know of only one case of theft there;a cooked chicken!

The climate in Newtonmore is a much better than on the west coast, far drier and with bad midge days in the garden few and far between. There are places ten minutes walk from the house that people from urban conurbations "would die for". The proof of this is that they are willing to drive 300 miles or more, in winter, after a hard day's work, just to get here for a weekend and then drive home on Sunday evening.

Being self-employed, if the hostel is quiet, we can take advantage of good weather to walk, ski, cycle or, in the heat of the summer, go and jump in a local river (there are some great swimming places close to the village). Craigellachie House has been superb both as a B&B and a family house.

We can’t pretend life has been faultless or that it never rains or there are never any midges but we have no regrets about buying the house, bringing up our children here, and starting the business. We're very happy here but our boys have more or less left home and we are older now so it is time to move on.