The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
HEART OF PERTHSHIRE
A new-build house in glorious countryside just a few miles from Auchterarder was snapped up within a week. But don’t worry, another one by the same self-builder will be on sale soon, Jack Mckeown says
D om Edwards is a man who likes to learn.
He’s gone from doing up his own home to buying, renovating and selling houses, and now building two luxury detached houses from scratch – with just a little bit of help.
“I’ve always been quite good with my hands and I learned things as I went along,” the 41-year-old explains.
“Quite a long time ago, I had a go at replacing the kitchen in our house, and then did a bathroom as well.
“Before long, I was renovating whole houses.”
Dom and his partner Helena moved house several times in the space of a few years, buying, renovating and then selling on for a profit.
“We did four or five of our own houses and then renovated and sold three houses,” Dom continues. “Eventually it was going well enough to start doing it full-time.”
Dom found a plot of land for sale just outside the Perthshire hamlet of Trinity Gask, around four miles north of Auchterarder.
It had planning permission in place and Dom successfully amended it to two houses of the size and style he wanted.
He employed a building firm to dig the foundations, put up the walls and roof, and make the houses wind and watertight. Where possible, he used local firms – Rob Roy Homes in Crieff supplied the timber frame kits.
He then fitted out the interiors himself, with a small amount of help from an electrician and heating engineer.
The first house, Bruachmor, was finished early this year and brought to market a few weeks ago. Dom’s currently hard at work completing its neighbour, Drumbroch.
“Both names are Gaelic and relate to the local area and the site,” he says. “Bruachmor means ‘slope-more-great’ while Drumbroch means ‘ridged fortified house’. We put a bit of thought into it and wanted names that reflected the houses’ location.”
It’s certainly a very scenic location indeed. I visit a couple of days after Storm Darcy carpeted Scotland in snow. The A9 is clear but the six miles of the old Roman road on which the houses lie is crusted with the white stuff. Fortunately, I have a 4x4 and take things nice and easy.
I manage to get my car up the driveway and park it in deep snow next to Dom’s van.
The houses sit on a slight slope running down from a ridge line above. A Christmas tree plantation lies at the back of the gardens – when Dom bought the site the trees marched all the way to where the houses now stand and he had to fell them to clear enough space for gardens.
I step inside Bruachmor and take my snowy boots off. Engineered wood flooring is warmed by underfloor heating and large windows throw in plenty of winter sunlight.
The kitchen is the most impressive space. High-end units, built-in appliances and a large island occupy one end of the room, while the other end is a living or dining area with a vaulted ceiling, two Velux windows and patio doors opening out to the garden.
The sitting room is at the front of the house and enjoys views across farmland towards the River Earn.
There’s a downstairs office that is all set up for home working and a downstairs bedroom, along with a large shower room and a utility room.
The double garage has a floored attic space above that could easily be converted into an additional home office.
Upstairs are four double bedrooms and a family bathroom. The master bedroom has its own en suite and dressing area.
There’s a large storage cupboard in which Dom has installed pipework for a washing machine.
“We moved our washing machine upstairs a few years ago and wouldn’t go back,” he smiles. “Why would you take your clothes downstairs only to take them back up again? We put in pipework here in case anyone wants to give our system a go.”
The upstairs bedrooms showcase the view beautifully, and I can see the sunlight glinting on the waters of the Earn amid the blanket of snow.
“We’re only a few minutes from Auchterarder and Perth but the Roman road is extremely quiet,” Dom continues. “Most of the passing vehicles are local farm traffic.”
An air source heat pump provides underfloor heating downstairs and supplies radiators upstairs, as well as generating hot water. The house is very well insulated and should be economical to run.
There’s a small garden to the front of the house and a large expanse of lawn to the rear, which backs on to the Christmas tree plantation and then fields and woodland beyond. There are patios to the front and rear of the house to enjoy the sunshine all day.
Although Bruachmor sits beside its neighbour Drumbroch, Dom cleverly designed the houses so neither has windows looking into the other and both enjoy great privacy.
Bruachmor sold within a week of going on the market. “We had several viewings and quite quickly got an offer,” Dom says.
“It was a good feeling because the sale takes some of the pressure off finishing Drumbroch. I was working evenings and weekends on it and now I can go back to a normal working week.”
Anyone disappointed about missing out on Bruachmor should keep an eye on selling agent Galbraith, as the very similar Drumbroch will go on sale with them as soon as it’s completed, which Dom thinks will be towards the end of the year.
Dom previously worked as an evolutionary biologist, gaining his PHD at Stirling University, and working at universities in Norwich and Liverpool.
Now that his house renovation and housebuilding business has proven its mettle, he doesn’t think he’ll return to his old line of work.
With one house finished and sold, and the other well under way, Dom’s eye is now roving around looking for his next project.
“I’ve really enjoyed doing these two houses. It’s very difficult to find the right plot of land though. Larger plots get bought up by the big housing companies and plots for one house get snapped up by people doing self-builds. It’s quite tricky finding a plot of land where you can do a small cluster of unique houses.”
Bruachmor is under offer, however Drumbroch should be completed later this year and will be marketed through Galbraith.
“Y ou’ve never had it so good,” went the expression, borrowed from a 1952 US election slogan by Harold Macmillan in 1957.
Post-war, the global economy was booming, and with it the standard of living.
In the US, the Golden Age of capitalism dawned, giving people plenty of work and leisure time.
A growing middle class sprawled across suburbia, constantly finding ways to make life easier and more enjoyable.
Design had a futuristic feel and the major trend was for technology and appliances.
House Beautiful magazine said then that the best weapon America had in the Cold War was “the freedom offered by washing machines and dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, automobiles and refrigerators”.
Interior decor was playful, bold and innovative, reflecting the optimism of the time.
Colours contrasted rather than harmonised, with pastels, such as mint, turquoise and pink; brights including orange and electric blue; or a Scandinavian palette rooted in nature with browns, greys and greens.
Furniture was comfortable to the point of cocooning, with an emphasis on leisure and entertaining.
Now known as Mid Century design, today’s pieces either replicate the originals or evoke their qualities.
Others have been in almost continuous production, such as the famous Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.
The Orange, designed in the 1950s by Danish architect Hans Olsen, encapsulates the fun and experimental colour schemes of the decade.
Finn Juhl’s Reading Chair, designed in 1953, allows the user to comfortably read a book while sitting backwards, while Arne Hovmand-olsen’s Lean Back chair is an apt metaphor for the relaxed and carefree spirit of the age.
Iusually have a joke with the caretaker at Scone Palace where I work as head gardener, that the first month when we come back after the Christmas break we’re both quite relaxed, getting on with our respective winter jobs lists without any of the other added pressures that come when working at a major tourist attraction. We both have deadlines to get everything done by, which is usually the Easter weekend when we open for the season and although we’ve made good progress, when February comes, we’re starting to think “OK we’ve got plenty time but jings there’s still loads to do!”.
We haven’t reached the heid-less chicken phase where we’re running around trying to get everything done – that usually comes sometime in March when the countdown clock is clicking loudly.
A few weeks earlier than normal this year, I feel I’ve reached that March stage already. I know this winter, the weeks of snow and cold temperatures, has been just what the garden needs but it hasn’t helped me progress with many of the garden jobs I was looking to get done.
The thing with nature is it doesn’t stop for anyone and if we turn our backs on it for one minute we’ll soon know about it. Remember the good old days we used to get away for a fortnight’s holiday?
The grass didn’t take a break and on return would take twice as long to get it back how we like it.
Without regular trimming, hedges soon go wild – just take a look at some of the hairstyles going around at the moment and you’ll see what I mean – and if we don’t keep up with watering our potted plants, they won’t last long, shrivelling and dying with drought.
So when this winter weather finally clears, myself and the gardens team at Scone Palace are going to be faced with the challenge of completing winter shrub pruning and tidying up the foliage of herbaceous plants right on the line when our plants are about to burst into life again.
Every spring I still manage to get caught out with this, and I can’t deny there has been many a time I’ve been trying to cut back the foliage on the likes of Catmint or the grassy like Siberian Iris foliage while trying not to damage the new shoots of growth that are already a few centimetres long.
As footery as that is, I still want to make sure I get all the jobs involving cutting into woody growth completed by the end of February, at the latest. Shrubs aside, where the timing of pruning work depends on the plant, work carried out on trees is best carried out within one of two windows. One is early summer after the tree has reached the peak of its growth before retrenching, as it stores up energy as it goes through its winter cycle. The other is now.
Just now, while in the dark months of winter, our trees are having a well earned rest, which is the perfect time for carrying out any works. For us at Scone Palace, with a large collection of trees, many a few hundred years old, this could mean some significant crown reduction or removal of branches to help prolong their lives and keep them safe for us all to enjoy and appreciate.
In my own garden, where the trees are only a fraction of the size, I’ll be looking out for any crossing branches that may rub against each other, creating weak spots that could eventually fail. I’ll also be checking out lower branches, potentially removing to allow more light down to the bed below or just to allow me to pass under them without banging my head!
A wee tip here, in these cases you don’t necessarily have to go to the extremes of removing a whole branch, sometime just a nibble is enough to take some of that extra weight off which will lift the branch up.
Come the end of winter into the beginning of spring, our trees and shrubs come back to life, where energy stored in the plants roots initiate the flow of sap into producing leaves and new shoot growth. Pruning then may not see cuts heal and the plant will bleed.
This year I’m really wanting to up my game and not waste a thing from the garden, and with woody material like this, I like to put it through a chipper where it will be processed into smaller wood chips. These are really useful for making paths in your garden or top dressing.
The wood chips can also be mixed into your compost heap to help improve its drainage qualities, or used as a mulch around some of your favourite plants, helping to suppress weeds and protect soil. Be careful using fresh wood chippings where there is a risk they can extract essential plant nutrients from the soil as they decompose, ideally setting aside in a corner of your garden for a good six months, allowing them to ‘mature’ first.
Personally I really don’t like the look of dried out chips sitting on the surface of my beds, preferring the look of a lovely, crumbly dark looking compost that I can get the hoe through during the growing season.
T he twin bumps of the Lomond hills provide many satisfying walks but I always feel the richest rewards come from tackling them individually: West Lomond from Glen Vale, and East Lomond from Falkland.
After all, East Lomond is also known as Falkland Hill and, despite its relatively modest height, it dominates the view from the picture perfect town.
The advantage of this route is starting and finishing in the historic heart of Falkland, allowing time to explore its beautiful architecture, which includes the Bruce Fountain and the palace and gardens built by the Stuart kings in the 1500s.
In recent years, the TV series Outlander has swelled the numbers of visitors, with fans making their own pilgrimages to visit the locations seen on screen.
I had picked a day of icy beauty, flawless blue sky and brilliant light. It was a slippery and cautious exit from the car park and up to the wood. There are plenty signs to keep you right, including one reassuring reminder that horses are not permitted on the footpath.
A long flight of wood-fronted steps got the heart rate up, leading steeply to the edge of the treeline where the summit dome suddenly came back into full view. A good path contoured across the flank. Once over a stile, the path steepened appreciably, but the effort was short-lived.
So far I had been the only one on approach, but once on the ridge figures started appearing from every direction.
The views from the top were expansive; the tiny buildings of Falkland lying in shadow below, all the land between the Tay and the Forth spreading north and south, and a forever vista to the east. A summit view indicator is a handy aid, providing an instant identity to distant shapes.
The hill is what remains of an extinct volcano formed more than 400 million years ago. A Pictish hill fort crowned the summit during the Iron Age, and evidence of a burial cairn from the earlier Bronze Age has also been unearthed.
The prominent higher sibling of West Lomond was an enticing sight, but it was for another day. The path dropped off the top steeply south-west, but before heading down to the onward route, I made the short diversion to the south to visit the unusually sited trig pillar (they are usually found on summits).
By the time I reached the wall and the parallel track I had passed a procession of walkers coming uphill, and the car park at Craigmead was full to bursting. A quick skirt round, then through a gate off the minor road and I was back in a more peaceful setting.
It’s hard to go wrong from here; there are regular signposts as you meander downwards across a series of bridges and path junctions, with the biggest sign of all, East Lomond itself, keeping you company all the way.
Barring Covid restrictions and occasional closures for repair work and safety reasons, you should be able to descend into the delights of Maspie Den, crossing a series of little bridges and running under naturally carved rock and waterfalls, before emerging through a tunnel to reach an arched bridge.
Nearing the finish line, the route skirts the House of Falkland, a Jacobean-styled country property which serves as a school, to follow the tree-lined road past a stable block and back into the centre of Falkland.
ROUTE
1
Leave car park on W side and walk S up road past housing, continuing on track marked Footpath to East Lomond. Keep right at fork to reach wooden steps going left.
2
Climb past waterworks, and go straight ahead at next junction as path climbs through woods to reach longer flight of wooden steps.
3
Trend right above trees on to path running across hill, cross stile and make steeper climb to summit.
4
Drop steeply SW with care (there is a trig point on slope S of summit) to fence and cross to head W on track descending to Craigmead car park.
5
Stay right of car park on road, go through metal gate on left then fainter right-hand fork through field (signed Path to Falkland).
6
Go through another gate and keep left at next fork. After crossing footbridge, forked path joins again from right. Pass through another gate, take second path on right which drops beside burn to reach waterfall and continue downstream.
7
Cross series of little bridges until path meets track, cross this and go through stone tunnel then another stone bridge to emerge at House of Falkland.
8
Cross stone bridge, bear left to road then turn right and follow it back into Falkland.
Alan Rowan is a well-known author and walker. You can follow his regular mountain adventures at munromoonwalker.com
• Please observe government coronavirus safety guidelines in all outdoor activities