Loch of love in Ullapool

The Curved Stone House overlooking Loch Broom is gorgeous inside and out, finds Gaby Soutar

Thank you, Tiddles. I hope you get better soon. According to Rachel Anderson, who owns The Stonehouses with her husband, Gavin, a free slot at either of their two Ullapool selfcatering properties doesn’t come up very often. They have a coterie of repeat bookers, and guests lining up to experience the five-star accommodation.

We’re only here because a moggy got ill and its owners had to cancel.

Thus, we zipped up to Ullapool – four and a bit hours from Edinburgh – to take advantage of their feline misfortune.

And, not to rub it in, they are missing out.

We’re staying at the Curved Stone House, slightly down the hillside from their other property, Treetop House.

Both of them are clad in slate and topped and surrounded by wild grass, daisies and other meadow flowers, creating dots of colour like a Klimt painting. Our home for the weekend is on a single level, and the other is staggered across three, as if it’s a lighthouse.

Apparently, Gavin Anderson spent three years clearing this area, which involved cutting back rhododendron and chiselling into the steep bank. Designed by Hebridean architect Stuart Bagshaw, they were inspired by the Andersons’ 14 years in Uganda and the vernacular buildings there. The result is not hobbity or couthy, but light and modern, with verandahs that spill out from every window.

Inside, and every room frames the incredible view – the huge sky, across to the slightly forbidding looking hills, which turn black whenever clouds appear, and down to Loch Broom, with the occasional cruise ship drifting across the horizon.

The interior lines are organic and flowing, so it’s almost like being inside a shell. We were like a pair of pampered hermit crabs, especially since this house has two huge double bedrooms, a wood-burning stove, its own sauna, double showers in one room, and an egg-shaped bath and twin sinks in another. There are also artworks – mainly colourful still lifes – from the local gallery.

If you’re in the living room, there are a couple of steps up to the kitchen, which makes it look like a stage. And it could be, since there is every modcon for the amateur chef, including a giant Smeg fridge and a

top-of-the-range kettle that looks like a diving bell.

Guests also get a welcome hamper, with bread, salmon, milk, biscuits, wine and more. I blame that offering for my current addiction to the smoked cheddar from Ullapool Smokehouse.

After browsing the visitor book, it became evident that many people use Ullapool and these houses as a stop-off or gateway to other places, like Assynt, Colgach, Gairloch, Inverewe Gardens, various beaches such as Gruinard Bay and Stornoway, which is a ferry trip away. It’s also on the North Coast 500 route, so would make a good stop-off before continuing on in either direction towards Lochinver or Poolewe.

We wished we had longer, but with two nights, we forgot about daytripping and made the most of our base.

Ullapool is just five minutes down the hill, and is something of a tourist honeypot. We watched a rib go out from a Nordic cruise liner, in order to decant people into the harbour so they could explore. There’s a lot to get round – coffee and craft shops, the

Clockwise from main: Shore Street, Ullapool; the exterior of the Curved Stone House; one of the bedrooms

incredible street food venue that is the Seafood Shack, An Talla Solais, which has a gallery selling beautiful jewellery and prints, and hotel and restaurant The Ceilidh Place, which attracts some big names in music and comedy and has a lovely bookshop. There’s also a decent gift shop, The Captain’s Cabin, and the Ullapool Smokehouse, which was mercifully closed when we tried to visit it, or I might have ordered a lifetime’s supply of truckles.

For a short walk, you can take the Ullapool Hill Paths from just beside the Curved Stone House. It’s worth the uphill schlep, past the coconutscented gorse, for the view across to those hills and to have your lungs pumped with fresh oxygen.

This is a beautiful part of the country and we had the most spectacular base to explore it from.

If you want to visit, get your name down and pray for someone’s cat to catch a cold. ■

It’s also on the North Coast 500 route, so would make a good stop-off

The Stonehouses, Mill Street, Ullapool, Wester Ross (01854 613 838, www.thestonehouses.co.uk). Prices start at £870 for a three-night stay and £1,280 for a week (November to March) and rise to £1,940 for a week in peak season.