A house built by an industrial titan
Take this rare chance to own a home designed by the great Scottish engineer Thomas Telford
RECOGNISED as a titan of the Industrial Revolution, he forged much of the infrastructure of Georgian and Victorian Britain. Thomas Telford’s iron bridges were things of wonder. He constructed and improved canals to allow goods to be transported much quicker than the existing horse and cart.
But Telford also found time to devote to much humbler projects – and many of these can still be found in some of the more remote parts of his native Scotland.
Nowhere are they more apparent than in the lovely fishing port of Ullapool in Ross-shire.
Here, in 1788, Telford built a harbour for the British Fisheries Society, allowing the village to thrive in the gleam of the ‘Silver Darlings’ – herring.
A few decades later, Telford was back in Ullapool to supervise the construction of one of 32 ‘Parliamentary’ churches and manses, so-called because Westminster decreed Scotland was in dire need of more places of worship.
These were to be built along identical lines, a basic rectangular floor plan, with belfry – and should be ‘particularly calculated to resist a stormy climate’.
The church Telford built in Ullapool in 1829 witnessed weekly worship until 1935, when it was replaced by another building. It is now the Ullapool Museum, which five years ago launched its Saving Thomas Telford project, leading to complex preservation work.
Next door lies Telford’s manse, a handsome Highland retreat that looks straight down Loch Broom, the route for the CalMac ferry to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.
In 1952, Katie and Jock MacInnes bought the manse directly from the Church. For 40 years, they ran it as a guest house. Their daughter, Mary Brown, can still recall the names of holidaymakers who would make the annual pilgrimage from as far away as the Isle of Wight.
She said: ‘Ullapool in the 1950s was a magnet for holidaymakers. The season started in April and finished in September. They would come on full board, which meant they got breakfast, lunch, tea and supper.
‘Dad ran the local Loch Broom Filling Station. He would work all day, then come home around 6pm and start to help my mum with the washing-up.
‘I remember my parents didn’t stop, even when the holiday season ended. My mother would roll up the carpet in the front room and take in lorry drivers and fish buyers.’
Contrary to what you may think, Mary didn’t get to meet too many of the guests. As she explained: ‘In those days, children were seen and not heard.’
But there were compensations. She added: ‘I grew up eating the best of fish, prawns and lobster.”
Now called Ornsay House, the C-Listed manse has no fewer than eight bedrooms. It was completely refurbished in 2009, providing shower rooms, partial double glazing, central heating and landscaping of the garden.
The sitting and dining rooms each have open fires, while the family room to the back boasts a multi-fuel stove.
A double bedroom on the ground floor would suit someone with limited mobility; or could be used as owners’ accommodation if the house were again to be used as a B&B.
Each of the upstairs bedrooms has its own washhand basin and some have fireplaces – discovered by a delighted Mary after they were boarded up by her father in the 1960s.
A survey for the Federation of Small Businesses recently declared Ullapool the ‘most entrepreneurial’ place in Scotland.
No wonder, with people such as Mary’s industrious parents to be proud of – not forgetting, of course, that certain Mr Telford who built their home.
Offers over £380,000 to CKD Galbraith, Inverness. Tel 01463 224343 or email inverness@ ckdgalbraith.co.uk