A sprawling, 10,000sq ft house in a Scottish nature reserve, with views to die for across the northern Highlands

(Image credit: Monster Moves)

published 16 September 2021

Wild moors, sandy beaches and panoramic views are the draw at Forsinain Steading, a conversion set in the heart of a nature reserve that has been a 10-year labour of love for the vendors.

For sale at an asking price of £700,000, this is a huge property, spanning more than 10,000 sq ft.

Painstakingly converted, it has six bedrooms, all with en-suite bathrooms, and two dressing rooms. The four reception rooms, which include a double-height dining hall with exposed stone walls and Caithness flagstone floor, are roomy and light-filled.

There is also plenty of character with exposed beams, skylights and a mezzanine walkway that contains a library, complementing the characterful stone exterior, which has been freshly repointed and has its jaunty green window and door frames.

The garden room (where a log-fired boiler fuels the underfloor heating), kitchen and sitting room, with its reclaimed Caithness flagstones and log burner, all overlook the courtyard and, outside, there’s a garage, workshop, store and natural pond.

The village of Armadale is about 20 minutes away and Thurso town 45 minutes, so getting from this remote spot to the outside world isn't too difficult.

One word of caution, however: the house is not yet finished. Potential buyers are told by the agents that Forsinain Steading is an ‘80% complete’ property, with a few remaining fixtures and fittings on site awaiting installation.

Forsinain Steading is for sale through Monster Moves at an asking price of £700,000 — see more pictures or enquire with the agent for further details.

Armadale and Forsinain: What you need to know

Location: Forsinain is a tiny settlement just a few miles from the northern coast of Scotland. Armadale is the nearest spot, a village situated about 30 miles west of Thurso.
Things to do: The area offers plenty of river walks, hillwalking, on and off road cycling, motorcycling and fishing and the local beach is great for surfing or simply relaxing. Thurso, with all its shops, where there are a variety of shops, including three supermarkets is a little more than half an hour's drive away.
Schools: Farr Primary School and Farr High are in nearby Bettyhill.
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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.

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