‘Our new home has a stone toilet and a copper sink’
Alison Maccoll, 54, wanted a new adventure in the countryside but the property they found certainly had its challenges
Browsing the estate agent’s website, my eyes alighted on a stunning property and I knew I’d just seen our new family home. At £600,000, with three bedrooms, three acres, overlooking a beautiful loch, with just cows and sheep for neighbours, it ticked all our boxes. It wasn’t the most conventional of family homes, though – it was a 15th-century castle with a great hall and a pit prison! To my husband Alistair and me, that only added to the appeal. We could see raising our children, Iona and Angus, now eight and six, in the countryside would give them much more freedom than in a city, and so many adventures.
That was two years ago, and we’ve never regretted leaving our old house on a main road in the suburbs of Edinburgh, for our castle near East Kilbride – although it has certainly had its challenges!
The decor was dated and the kitchen tiny. We knew we were committing to years of work to get it how we wanted it, and that first winter was a brutal introduction to rural life. The old, oil-fired heating system broke down and was irreparable.
While we waited for a new boiler, we had to rely on plug-in radiators and thermals.
Our castle is as far as you can get from a ‘typical’ family home, with so many original features. Like its solid stone spiral staircase, walls that are six-feet thick, a bathroom with a stone toilet and a handmade copper sink.
Alistair, a lawyer, has converted the minstrel’s gallery into his office, and
I still pinch myself that I can stand on the castle parapet with a cup of tea, admiring the incredible views.
I can feel the castle’s history all around me and I feel proud to live somewhere so unique; it’s rumoured Mary Queen of Scots visited here once. But it’s a home not a museum – where once there were lairds and swordsmen, now there’s my children playing games and us watching a family movie.
One challenge has been furnishing the castle. Although we had some antique furniture in our last home that suits the style of the castle, some larger items, such as a bookcase and sofas, were too big to fit up the narrow staircase and currently we’re storing them in the vault on the ground floor.
We had to buy a self-assembly sofa for our family room (the great hall) and flat-pack bunk beds for the children, because it was easier to get them to the upper floors of the castle. The previous owner kindly left some Jacobean-style furniture and accessories for us, including a dining table and chairs, a china cabinet, swords and even some mini cannonballs. We also have stags’ heads on the walls. It’s important to me to retain the style and history of our home in our decor.
The setting helps make it so special, too. We’re only an hour from Edinburgh and Glasgow, but it’s so different from my old life. We’re clearing the orchard to grow our own fruit, and love to explore the countryside together. I’m a scent specialist, teaching fragrance classes, and I make soap with petals from the garden. The children love sailing on the loch and going on Brownie adventures in the nearby woods.
I feel incredibly content here.
‘It was a castle with a great hall and a prison!’