Fairburn Tower is the latest magnificent building saved and given a new life by The Landmark Trust. Mary Miers takes a look.
For those who dream of restoring a Scottish castle, but suspect that steep, spiral staircases, small windows in 6ft-thick walls and vertically stacked rooms with turret closets might not be entirely practical for permanent residence, the Landmark Trust has the perfect answer: rent one for a holiday. The conservation charity, which was founded by Sir John Smith in 1965, has 200 unusual buildings in its portfolio, ranging from 15th-century Llwyn Celyn in Monmouthshire and Wyatt’s model dairy at Cobham Hall, Kent, to the Gothic Temple at Stowe in Buckinghamshire and the Frank Lloyd Wright-style Anderton House in Devon.
Among the gatehouses and prospect towers, ornamental poultry and pig houses, chapels and banqueting pavilions, Scottish castles stand out as particularly popular. The trust’s latest triumph, Fairburn Tower in the Highlands, joins Saddell Castle, Old Place of Monreith, Castle of Park and Rosslyn Castle as its fifth Landmark in this category. Newly resplendent in a coat of pink limewash, the slender, pepperpot-turreted shaft is an inspiring example of how a 16th-century fortified dwelling can be sympathetically adapted for modern domestic use.
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Fairburn stands above the River Orrin with splendid views to Ben Wyvis and the Black Isle, one of a string of Mackenzie towers that were strategically sited to guard the fertile farmlands of Easter Ross. Built in the 1540s by a courtier of James V, the castle was abandoned in the 18th century and became a roofless shell, sometimes occupied as a byre.
The trust started work here in 2020, with the help of Country Life Top 100 architects Simpson & Brown. Since then Fairburn has been restored to its 17th-century form, preserving the fortified ground floor, with its gunloops and rare swivel mount for a gun pintle still in situ, and reinstating the spiral stair. The interior — with only one room on each of four floors — has been furnished to suit the period, combining traditional features with discreet mod cons.
The trust is notable for commissioning traditional craftspeople to make new work for its properties and Fairburn presents two fine examples of this contemporary patronage. The hall has been embellished with a conjecturally decorated ceiling, painted by Paul Mowbray with texts and motifs based on historic precedents, and the textile designer Duncan Tattersall has created a fabric based on the Brahan Seer’s prophecy that a cow would give birth in one of the tower’s chambers — a foretelling that almost certainly came true.
Four nights at Fairburn Tower, which sleeps four, costs from £424. To book, visit www.landmarktrust.org.uk
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