Castle for sale: ghost included
Have you always fancied a holiday home in Scotland? This one is up for grabs at just £7-million. The last laird talks to Cole Moreton
WE call her name and wait in breathless hope, but the ghost of Balavil does not respond. “Sarah?” Nothing.
The china cups do not rattle in their saucers. The lights of the drawing room do not flicker, the antique silver remains unmoved.
The ghost of Sarah, the brokenhearted maid, refuses to make her presence felt, at first, even as the Laird of Balavil begins again to explain why he is selling the grand old home in the Highlands in which she is said to reside.
“We are getting long in the tooth,” says Allan Macpherson-Fletcher, 63, striding out to the magnificent, galleried hall of a house that has been in his family since 1790.
Balavil was made famous as Kilwillie Castle in the television drama Monarch of the Glen. The laird is as colourful as anyone on TV, dressed for the grouse moor in a startling green tweed unique to Balavil, bright-blue stockings and polished-brown loafers, with his great uncle’s gold fob watch in his waistcoat.
A mighty stag looks down at us from its mount high up on the wall.
I’m not a great believer in ghosts but there are an awful lot of inexplicable things that happen in the house that we put down to Sarah
So do dozens of other beady eyes, belonging to trophy animals and birds killed on the estate, which runs to over 2 800ha and is known for its hunting, shooting and fishing.
The laird and his wife, Marjorie, have worked hard to run Balavil as a commercial operation for the past four decades, welcoming guests but keeping it in the family even as all the neighbouring estates were sold.
“We have put our heart and soul into this place, and now it is time to cash in on that.” So how much does he want for the place? “£7-million and a bit would be grand,” says the laird, beaming at the thought of it.
For that money, you will get a fine old house designed by Robert Adam, with a helpful ghost and a dash of TV glamour thrown in.
“Sarah was a maid who fell in love with the butler, but he was above her station, so she threw herself from a bridge into the waters of the Raitts Burn,” says the laird, who describes the ghost as “kindly and well meaning” — but then he has to live with her.
She has been known to switch on the kettle for coffee, set a fire in an empty, bitterly cold house and help a messy guest by folding her clothes and leaving them on the end of the bed overnight. Sarah has also been blamed for the wallpaper peeling in a bathroom by turning the hot taps on full blast. Twice.
He tells me the Macphersons are the last of the old families left in the great houses of Strathspey.
“I am surrounded by billionaires. The Danish are over here,” he says, gesturing out of the window, over a valley towards Glen Feshie. “We have Arabs on this side. Swedish behind. The other side of the Arabs are Swiss Italian. Beyond them are Egyptians. Beyond them Louis Vuitton, that’s all French.”
I brace myself to hear an attack on all these intruders, who have made their fortunes from fashion, shopkeeping, packaging and oil — but no, he loves them. “They pour money into the houses, employ lots of people, buy lots of goods and services locally and everybody loves them. They come for two or three weeks of the year.”
The sale of Balavil will mean the end of an era, but the laird is not bothered. “I’ve no concern about wealthy people taking over land in Scotland. There are people jumping up and down in Holyrood calling it iniquitous, but who cares if the land is owned in the Cayman Islands or something? They are not going to take it away with them. People have always been happy with absentee landlords in this part of the world.”
Balavil was built by a wealthy Georgian, James Macpherson, who had made his fortune from the East India Company. “He wanted to show off to his kinsmen, so he pulled in Robert Adam and said: ‘I want a swanky house here, let’s go for it.’ ”
Macpherson was also famous for “translating” — or indeed writing — the works of the Celtic poet Ossian, a literary sensation of the time and inspiration to the Romantics. He died at Balavil, but is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Later, the estate survived thanks to a “good marriage” into a family made rich by the Industrial Revolution.
In its 1930s heyday, Balavil had a carpenter, two foresters, four gamekeepers, six gardeners and eight farm staff. “There were also 14 staff in the house, looking after three members of the family.”
How many now? “We have one gamekeeper, one housekeeper and we take in temporary staff when we need them.” What about the gardening, the landscaping? “You’re looking at the gardener. And the landscaper.”
The house has 18 bedrooms, an impressive dining room and a gun room where the trophies range from a tiny duck to a snarling wildcat. “All our five children, when they shot their first grouse, their first pheasant, their first stag, they would hand them to me to be mounted,” says the laird. “We have had great fun here.”
Those days have now come to an end. “The rest of the family have neither the inclination nor the assets behind them to see it through another generation.”
He hopes a prospective buyer will be intrigued rather than put off by the ghost, whose presence was first felt when they opened up a sealed room under the kitchen.
“I’m not a great believer in ghosts but there are an awful lot of inexplicable things that happen in the house that we put down to Sarah,” he says.
When we try to record him talking about her, the batteries in the microphone are inexplicably dead. They were fine before. Could it be her?
“She has always come across as a very caring, and not in the slightest bit threatening, presence,” insists the laird, enlisting her help in his campaign to attract a buyer for Balavil. At least they will have someone to fold their clothes up overnight.