A castle is for keeps
As seen on TV – could this be the home of the year? asks Paul Drury
We have been weaned on a diet of Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer swooning over Kentish oast houses and Cotswolds cottages. Now the £32million-a-year injection into the new BBC Scotland channel means we can add but and bens and Highland castles to the property show mix.
In the cleverly titled Scotland’s Home of the Year, nosy experts get to root about and peek over the privet hedges of Scottish homes.
By snooping on the lives of others, three judges – architect and lecturer Michael Angus, interior designer Anna CampbellJones and blogger Kate Spiers, will reach a conclusion on what makes the perfect property, culminating in a televised final during the summer.
Lachie and Annie Stewart opened the (considerable) doors to Ballone Castle, near Tain in Ross-shire, to work out if a 16th century defensive tower might make the grade.
Mr Stewart discovered the property as a teenager when he strolled past it with a friend. At that stage it was still a ruin but almost 30 years ago he moved from London with his wife to make the castle’s restoration his life’s work.
With magnificent sangfroid, Mrs Stewart tells the programme: ‘This building is a scheduled monument, so it was incredibly difficult to persuade Historic Scotland to allow us to do it.
‘I managed to convince them that my needs were not that different from a medieval mum’s. The only thing that I needed was a dishwasher.’
She takes the view that her stone-floored great hall is not so different from the modern take on living space, where the family all live in a roomy combined kitchen, living room and dining area.
The great hall hosts birthday parties, Christmas dinners and homework sessions – and when the children were small, even acted as a racetrack for bikes.
Ballone has four bathrooms and seven bedrooms, some of which are only accessed by navigating secret passages.
Kate Spiers bemoans the lack of curtains in the castle, built in 1590. But then one of her fellow judges discovers that the four-poster bed in the room has drapes of its own, so that’s fine.
Mr Stewart, an architect by profession, admits that the couple would not have been able to live in the remote, clifftop spot if they did not work nearby.
They run the successful design house Anta, which manufactures luxury Scottish furnishings, carpets and upholstery. Why, the firm even makes curtains.
Ballone Castle is a perfect testing ground for trying out products or construction ideas.
However, Mr Stewart is captured, too, by the way his home has crept into his soul. He said: ‘This place is a vital part of our life. Our kids are away, learning design and testing their mettle against anything the world can throw at them.
‘But you have memories embedded in the very fabric of the place, things that are fundamental to you and your family.’
Sounds exactly like what a good home should be.
Scotland’s Home of the Year, BBC Scotland, Wednesday, April 17, 8pm.