Entire home
BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17
Photo gallery for BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17
Entire home
9 bedrooms6 bathroomsSleeps 17
Popular amenities
- Parking available
- Washer
- Pet-friendly
- Barbecue grill
- Outdoor space
- Kitchen
Explore the area
Balnakeil, SCT
- Balkaniel Beach5 min walk
- Balnakiel Craft Village9 min walk
- John Lennon Memorial Garden2 min drive
Room options
About the area
Balnakeil
A family-friendly stay in Balnakeil awaits you at this holiday home. Within just a 10-minute stroll, you'll find Balkaniel Beach and Balnakiel Craft Village. Highlights at this beachfront holiday home include a kitchen, a washing machine and free WiFi. .Home features 5.5 bathrooms, a living room and a dining area. In-room dining is easy with a kitchen that comes equipped with a fridge, a microwave and a stovetop. A fenced private garden, a Smart TV and a hairdryer are also available. Housekeeping is available on request. .This beach holiday home offers a games room, a garden and barbecues. .Sights within a 30-minute walk of this Balnakeil holiday home include John Lennon Memorial Garden and Durness Beach.
What's nearby
- Balkaniel Beach - 5 min walk
- Balnakiel Craft Village - 9 min walk
- John Lennon Memorial Garden - 2 min drive
- Smoo Cave - 4 min drive
- Durness Beach - 9 min drive
Restaurants
- Cocoa Mountain - 10 min walk
- The Durness Food Spot - 4 min drive
- Sango Sands Oasis - 2 min drive
- White Heather Cafe - 3 min drive
- The Seafood Platter - 3 min drive
About this property
Entire place
You'll have the entire home to yourself and will only share it with other guests in your party.
BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17
Balnakeil House is an A-listed nine-bedroom highland mansion which sleeps up to 17. Now fully restored it has been sympathetically refurbished to provide a unique and luxurious experience.
The setting is magical, all rooms have spectacular sea or mountain views. Step out the back door and onto the mile and a half long white sandy beach of Balnakeil Bay. Step into a timeless décor of earthy colours in sympathy with the surroundings, solid wooden furniture and heated slate floors, lovely muted plaids and tweeds from Anta.
Enter to find the superbly equipped kitchen with an Aga at one end, and a stove at the other separated by a 4.5m long oak table, it makes the perfect spot to gather and socialise whilst preparing and enjoying meals.
A games room with a pool table, board games, books, DVDs, stove, a comfy sofa and a flat screen TV will keep the young at heart entertained, whilst those requiring quieter moments can rest in the sumptuous drawing room upstairs, with a fantastic view over the beach, before all joining up for dinner in the breathtaking dining room.
The nine bedrooms are welcoming and exceptionally comfortable, with crisp white linen over memory foam mattresses.
A maximum of two dogs are welcome. The property has a strict pet policy, please enquire on booking.
The History of Balnakeil House
It is believed that building of the original Balnakeil House was begun around 1642 and it was then rebuilt c. 1744 and extended a few times in the 1800's, but there is no known authoritative work documenting this.
Balnakeil House was built by the Mackay chiefs as a family mansion on the site of an earlier building which had at one time been the summer palace of the medieval Bishops of Caithness. There is little by way of contemporary documentation on the building itself but plenty of stories about the place and its inhabitants. The first occupant of the rebuilt mansion, Donald, son of the third Lord Reay was, according to poet Rob Donn, "the apex of society and entertainment, of the men of poetry and of music". In 1740, the minister in the nearby manse, the Rev Murdo Macdonald, wrote in his diary that he couldn't concentrate on composing his Sunday sermons for all the merrymaking going on at the house on Saturday evenings!
From the early 1800s Balnakeil was occupied by the sheep farm tenant, beginning with John Dunlop. The last occupants were the previous farm manager and his family, the Andersons. Balnakeil House has lain empty since 1992.
Melness-based author Mary Beith has written: "By the end of the seventeenth century, the Reay Forest, including Glen Golly, had been subject to Sutherland's [sic] earliest and least publicised clearance when a chief of Mackay moved the people to Eddrachillis in the west to make way for what may well have been, ironically, both the Highland's first purpose-planned sporting estate and one of the last resorts of a truly indigenous luxury lifestyle.
"At Balnakeil House in Durness, John, Lord of Mackay, held sway over what the historian Edward Cowan has called "an almost aggressively traditional household". When the then Lord Lovat visited John Mackay in 1669 there was hawking, hunting, sea fishing, archery, wrestling, feasting, music and dancing. Among other household retainers, Mackay had a piper, a harpist and an amadan (Gaelic: fool or jester). When he left, Lovat was showered with gifts a sheltie, guns, longbows, an antique sword, a pair of deerhounds, a silk plaid and a doublet and trews."
In his book "The world of Rob Donn" (Edinburgh, 1979, although a new edition has now been issued) Ian Grimble wrote: "Second in magnificence to the seat of the chief at Tongue stood his mansion in the far west. This ancient manor farm had been inhabited by the second Lord Reay while Tongue House was being rebuilt, and it was used besides as a hunting lodge for expeditions to the Reay Forest, as a granary the chief's western estates, and as the residence of his heir. Like Tongue House it remains exactly as Rob Donn saw it, though it has also lost all its eighteenth century furnishings." According to Dr Grimble, Balnakeil was built by the second Lord Reay who was educated in Denmark while his father was fighting with his clan regiment in the Thirty Years' War, "and it may not be fanciful to see in its architecture the influence of the Danish manor-farm".
Another story related by Ian Grimble tells how the wife of a Mackay chief, a Sutherland by birth, helped save Kenneth Sutherland, an army deserter who had fled to Durness during or shortly after the 1745 rebellion. A detachment of troops caught up with him at Balnakeil. "Whether by accident or design, Kenneth Sutherland did not choose one of the doors leading to the ground-floor premises when he bolted through the garden and across the court. He chose the entrance which took him to these narrow stairs. At the head of them can still be seen the little closet beside the panelled reception room into which Lady Reay pushed her clansman in his extremity. She then welcomed his pursuers as they tumbled up the stairs, ushering them into the great room beyond Kenneth's hiding place. She ordered drink for them; she summoned the women who were working about the premises and improvised a dance."
"There was a lady beside the threshold / Standing there, alert, formidable. / I don't know the pass / He went out by, on my life / But between the woman's legs, / Without bonnet or weapons, / Very near the fissure where he was born, / There he made his escape." The double entendre got lost in the translation, apparently.
"Lady Reay's resourcefulness in smuggling the deserter to safety down that narrow staircase beneath a woman's skirts was not the only theme she provided for Rob Donn," Dr Grimble commented.
Balnakeil House was listed in 1971 by Historic Scotland as a category "A" building, which makes it of national importance, placing it in the top seven-and-a-half per cent of listed buildings. The escription reads: "1744. Two storey and attic, symmetrical U-plan house; four centre bays, rojecting outer wings with 3-bay inner faces to small paved court; two first floor and small attic windows only in south facing outer gabled wings. All harled, with polished ashlar margins and dressings." The interior is a mixture of original features and nineteenth century alterations and decoration (wood panelling etc.). The walled garden is dated 1863.
Works on the House started in late 2009, following lengthy discussions with Historic Scotland, and the house has now been sympathetically refurbished to form a comfortable large house.
Elliot Houses look forward to welcoming you to Balnakeil House!
The setting is magical, all rooms have spectacular sea or mountain views. Step out the back door and onto the mile and a half long white sandy beach of Balnakeil Bay. Step into a timeless décor of earthy colours in sympathy with the surroundings, solid wooden furniture and heated slate floors, lovely muted plaids and tweeds from Anta.
Enter to find the superbly equipped kitchen with an Aga at one end, and a stove at the other separated by a 4.5m long oak table, it makes the perfect spot to gather and socialise whilst preparing and enjoying meals.
A games room with a pool table, board games, books, DVDs, stove, a comfy sofa and a flat screen TV will keep the young at heart entertained, whilst those requiring quieter moments can rest in the sumptuous drawing room upstairs, with a fantastic view over the beach, before all joining up for dinner in the breathtaking dining room.
The nine bedrooms are welcoming and exceptionally comfortable, with crisp white linen over memory foam mattresses.
A maximum of two dogs are welcome. The property has a strict pet policy, please enquire on booking.
The History of Balnakeil House
It is believed that building of the original Balnakeil House was begun around 1642 and it was then rebuilt c. 1744 and extended a few times in the 1800's, but there is no known authoritative work documenting this.
Balnakeil House was built by the Mackay chiefs as a family mansion on the site of an earlier building which had at one time been the summer palace of the medieval Bishops of Caithness. There is little by way of contemporary documentation on the building itself but plenty of stories about the place and its inhabitants. The first occupant of the rebuilt mansion, Donald, son of the third Lord Reay was, according to poet Rob Donn, "the apex of society and entertainment, of the men of poetry and of music". In 1740, the minister in the nearby manse, the Rev Murdo Macdonald, wrote in his diary that he couldn't concentrate on composing his Sunday sermons for all the merrymaking going on at the house on Saturday evenings!
From the early 1800s Balnakeil was occupied by the sheep farm tenant, beginning with John Dunlop. The last occupants were the previous farm manager and his family, the Andersons. Balnakeil House has lain empty since 1992.
Melness-based author Mary Beith has written: "By the end of the seventeenth century, the Reay Forest, including Glen Golly, had been subject to Sutherland's [sic] earliest and least publicised clearance when a chief of Mackay moved the people to Eddrachillis in the west to make way for what may well have been, ironically, both the Highland's first purpose-planned sporting estate and one of the last resorts of a truly indigenous luxury lifestyle.
"At Balnakeil House in Durness, John, Lord of Mackay, held sway over what the historian Edward Cowan has called "an almost aggressively traditional household". When the then Lord Lovat visited John Mackay in 1669 there was hawking, hunting, sea fishing, archery, wrestling, feasting, music and dancing. Among other household retainers, Mackay had a piper, a harpist and an amadan (Gaelic: fool or jester). When he left, Lovat was showered with gifts a sheltie, guns, longbows, an antique sword, a pair of deerhounds, a silk plaid and a doublet and trews."
In his book "The world of Rob Donn" (Edinburgh, 1979, although a new edition has now been issued) Ian Grimble wrote: "Second in magnificence to the seat of the chief at Tongue stood his mansion in the far west. This ancient manor farm had been inhabited by the second Lord Reay while Tongue House was being rebuilt, and it was used besides as a hunting lodge for expeditions to the Reay Forest, as a granary the chief's western estates, and as the residence of his heir. Like Tongue House it remains exactly as Rob Donn saw it, though it has also lost all its eighteenth century furnishings." According to Dr Grimble, Balnakeil was built by the second Lord Reay who was educated in Denmark while his father was fighting with his clan regiment in the Thirty Years' War, "and it may not be fanciful to see in its architecture the influence of the Danish manor-farm".
Another story related by Ian Grimble tells how the wife of a Mackay chief, a Sutherland by birth, helped save Kenneth Sutherland, an army deserter who had fled to Durness during or shortly after the 1745 rebellion. A detachment of troops caught up with him at Balnakeil. "Whether by accident or design, Kenneth Sutherland did not choose one of the doors leading to the ground-floor premises when he bolted through the garden and across the court. He chose the entrance which took him to these narrow stairs. At the head of them can still be seen the little closet beside the panelled reception room into which Lady Reay pushed her clansman in his extremity. She then welcomed his pursuers as they tumbled up the stairs, ushering them into the great room beyond Kenneth's hiding place. She ordered drink for them; she summoned the women who were working about the premises and improvised a dance."
"There was a lady beside the threshold / Standing there, alert, formidable. / I don't know the pass / He went out by, on my life / But between the woman's legs, / Without bonnet or weapons, / Very near the fissure where he was born, / There he made his escape." The double entendre got lost in the translation, apparently.
"Lady Reay's resourcefulness in smuggling the deserter to safety down that narrow staircase beneath a woman's skirts was not the only theme she provided for Rob Donn," Dr Grimble commented.
Balnakeil House was listed in 1971 by Historic Scotland as a category "A" building, which makes it of national importance, placing it in the top seven-and-a-half per cent of listed buildings. The escription reads: "1744. Two storey and attic, symmetrical U-plan house; four centre bays, rojecting outer wings with 3-bay inner faces to small paved court; two first floor and small attic windows only in south facing outer gabled wings. All harled, with polished ashlar margins and dressings." The interior is a mixture of original features and nineteenth century alterations and decoration (wood panelling etc.). The walled garden is dated 1863.
Works on the House started in late 2009, following lengthy discussions with Historic Scotland, and the house has now been sympathetically refurbished to form a comfortable large house.
Elliot Houses look forward to welcoming you to Balnakeil House!
Property manager
Liz Elliot from Elliot Houses
Languages
English
Property amenities
Beach
- On the beach
- Beach towels
Internet
- Available in the house: Free WiFi
Parking and transport
- Car required
- Parking on site
Kitchen
- Cookware, dishware, and utensils
- Dishwasher
- Electric kettle
- Hob
- Ice maker
- Kitchen island
- Microwave
- Oven
- Paper towels
- Refrigerator
- Toaster
Dining
- Dining table
Bedrooms
- 9 bedrooms
- Bedsheets provided
Bathroom
- 5.5 bathrooms
- Hair dryer
- Shower
- Toilet paper
- Towels provided
Living spaces
- Dining table
- Living room
- Separate dining area
- Wood stove
Entertainment
- Books
- Games
- Smart TV
Outdoor areas
- Barbecue grill
- Fenced yard
- Garden
Laundry
- Washing machine
Comfort
- Heating
Pets
- Pet friendly
- Welcoming dogs only
- 2 pets total
Suitability/Accessibility
- Smoke-free property
Services and conveniences
- Housekeeping (on request)
- Iron/ironing board
Location highlights
- In a rural location
- In a village
- In the mountains
- Near the sea
Things to do
- Arcade/game room
- Billiards/pool table
- Golf
- Optional golf privileges
- Birdwatching nearby
- Cycling nearby
- Ecotours nearby
- Fishing nearby
- Golfing nearby
- Hiking/biking trails nearby
- Mountain climbing nearby
- Snorkelling nearby
- Spelunking nearby
- Swimming nearby
- Wildlife walks nearby
Safety features
- Carbon monoxide detector not reported (host has not indicated whether there is a carbon monoxide detector on the property; consider bringing a portable detector)
- Smoke detector not reported (host has not indicated whether there is a smoke detector on the property)
General
- Garden
- Housekeeping (on request)
Policies
Check-in
Check-in time starts at 4:00 PM
Minimum check-in age - 21
Check-out
Check-out before 10:00 AM
Special check-in instructions
You will receive an email from the host with check-in and check-out instructions
Pets
- Pets are welcome
- Only dogs are allowed
- Maximum 2 pets
- Restrictions apply
- For more information, you can reach out to the property at the number on the booking confirmation Service animals are exempt from fees.
- Note from host: The property has a strict pet policy.
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
Important information
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card, debit card or cash deposit may be required at check-in for incidental charges
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges; special requests cannot be guaranteed
On-site parties or group events are strictly prohibited
Host has not indicated whether there is a carbon monoxide detector on the property; consider bringing a portable detector with you on the trip
Host has not indicated whether there is a smoke detector on the property
This property is managed through our partner, Vrbo. You will receive an email from Vrbo with a link to a Vrbo account, where you can change or cancel your reservation
Charges for extra guests may apply and vary according to property policy.
A cash deposit, credit card or debit card for incidental charges and government-issued photo identification may be required upon check-in.
Special requests are subject to availability at the time of check-in. Special requests can't be guaranteed and may incur additional charges.
A cash deposit, credit card or debit card for incidental charges and government-issued photo identification may be required upon check-in.
Special requests are subject to availability at the time of check-in. Special requests can't be guaranteed and may incur additional charges.
- This property is managed by a professional host. The provision of housing is linked to their trade, business or profession. On-site parties or group events are strictly prohibited.
We should mention
- To make arrangements for your pet, contact the property directly using the information on your booking confirmation.
Frequently asked questions
Are there any beaches close to BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17?
Yep, BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17 is a short 5-minute walk from Balkaniel Beach. Fun beach activities include snorkelling, fishing and swimming.
Does BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17 have a pool?
No, this holiday home doesn't have a pool.
Is BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17 family-friendly?
You bet! With amenities such as a playground and an arcade, as well as highchairs and children's dinnerware, it's no surprise that BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17 is a winner with our family travellers.
Is there a free airport shuttle available at BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17?
No, BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17 does not offer an airport shuttle service.
What time are check-in & check-out at BALNAKEIL HOUSE - A-Listed Highland Mansion on the Beach sleeping up to 17?
Check-in begins at 4:00 PM. Check-out time is 10:00 AM.
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