Latest news with #InnerHebridean
Daily Record
30-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Record
Hedge fund boss buys Scots island as two remaining residents prepare to leave
A remote Scottish island home to just two people has been sold to a hedge fund tycoon. A hedge fund manager has bought a remote Scottish Island - as its only two residents are set to leave. The Isle of Rona sits between Skye and Raasay and is home to settlements, roaming deer and marine life from minke whales to sea eagles. New owner Fior Rona Ltd, a company set up by hedge fund manager Danny Luhde-Thompson and his wife Cressida Pollock last month, announced its official purchase of the Inner Hebridean island this week. The sale was "at market rate" during a private exchange, with the owners not wishing to disclose the price. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Rona, blanketed in knee-deep scrub and bogs, characterised by rocky outcrops and with stunning views across the mainland and Inner and Outer Hebridean islands, was sold by Danish couple Dorte and Arne Jensen. The couple bought the island in 1992 for a sum just short of £250,000 and have been regular visitors to the location since. For more than two decades, the 2,400-acre island has been home to couple Bill Cowie and Lorraine Shill, the only two residents on the island and who have worked as custodians of Rona since moving there in the early 2000s. Bill, who moved to the island almost 25 years ago where he lived alone for several years before being joined by Lorraine, who he met when she came over for a holiday and decided to stay. The island has remained miraculously underdeveloped, compared to the ever increasingly popular Skye, with just two holiday cottages for guests, a lodge, a bothy and a separate home built for the couple to live in. They are set to leave in the autumn. The sale of the island ties in with the the couple's retirement. Speaking after the announcement, Mr Cowie, 69, said the mood still feels " business as usual" until the pair officially move from Rona in the autumn. "When we finally set sail out the harbour, that's going to be when we feel it after being here all these years," he said. "It's not just been a job living and working here. It's been part of our life for the last 23 years. "But things move on and it's time for us to move on. "We have reached a stage where age is against us and we can't do more of what it takes to run a place like Rona. "We will miss the views." A small museum has been made out of a ruin at a settlement site and some abandoned Ministry of Defence buildings sit to the north. There are no roads and no shops. A recent addition to the island has been a venison larder and butchery built by Mr Cowie, who has carefully managed the Rona herd of red deer since moving to the island in 2002. The produce, 'Rona Venison ', is supplied to guests and sold locally. On the future of the island, spokesperson for Fior Rona Ltd Adam Crookshank said: "The island of Rona has been purchased by Fior Rona Ltd who will look to carry on the excellent work of the previous owners and custodians and will try to ensure that the natural heritage, including the island itself and the marine environment that surrounds it, continues to thrive under their custodianship. "This will include carrying out baseline surveys to understand the current state of biodiversity and allow for the development of a considered plan to further protect and restore the natural habitats, and to measure progress over time." The island currently supports low-impact tourism with two holiday lets and attracts hundreds of visiting sailing boats to the harbours throughout the year, of which there are two on the island. Mr Crookshank said the new owners will continue to welcome visitors to Rona and look forward to engaging with local businesses and stakeholders into the future.
Scotsman
30-07-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Magical Scottish island home to two residents changes hands after three decades
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A hidden gem of an island off the west coast of Scotland has changed hands after more than three decades of the same ownership. The Isle of Rona sits between Skye and Raasay and is home to settlements, roaming deer and a plethora of marine life on its shores, from minke whales to sea eagles. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad New owner Fior Rona Ltd, a company set up by hedge fund manager Danny Luhde-Thompson and his wife Cressida Pollock last month, announced its official purchase of the Inner Hebridean island this week. Autumn views from one of the buildings on Rona | Katharine Hay The sale was 'at market rate' during a private exchange, with the owners not wishing to disclose the price. Rona, blanketed in knee-deep scrub and bogs, characterised by rocky outcrops and with stunning views across the mainland and Inner and Outer Hebridean islands, was sold by Danish couple Dorte and Arne Jensen. The couple bought the island in 1992 for a sum just short of £250,000 and have been regular visitors to the location since. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad For more than two decades, the 2,400-acre island has been home to couple Bill Cowie and Lorraine Shill, the only two residents on the island and who have worked as custodians of Rona since moving there in the early 2000s. Bill Cowie, who moved to the island almost 25 years ago where he lived alone for several years before being joined by Lorraine, who he met when she came over for a holiday and decided to stay | Katharine Hay The island has remained miraculously underdeveloped, compared to the ever increasingly popular Skye, with just two holiday cottages for guests, a lodge, a bothy and a separate home built for the couple to live in. A small museum has been made out of a ruin at a settlement site and some abandoned Ministry of Defence buildings sit to the north. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There are no roads and no shops. A recent addition to the island has been a venison larder and butchery built by Mr Cowie, who has carefully managed the Rona herd of red deer since moving to the island in 2002. The produce, 'Rona Venison', is supplied to guests and sold locally. Rona Lodge, one of the properties on the island | Katharine Hay The sale of the island ties in with the the couple's retirement. Speaking after the announcement, Mr Cowie, 69, said the mood still feels 'business as usual' until the pair officially move from Rona in the autumn. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'When we finally set sail out the harbour, that's going to be when we feel it after being here all these years,' he said. 'It's not just been a job living and working here. It's been part of our life for the last 23 years. 'But things move on and it's time for us to move on. We have reached a stage where age is against us and we can't do more of what it takes to run a place like Rona. 'We will miss the views.' Views from Rona towards Skye in the summer months | Katharine Hay On the future of the island, spokesperson for Fior Rona Ltd Adam Crookshank said: 'The island of Rona has been purchased by Fior Rona Ltd who will look to carry on the excellent work of the previous owners and custodians and will try to ensure that the natural heritage, including the island itself and the marine environment that surrounds it, continues to thrive under their custodianship. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'This will include carrying out baseline surveys to understand the current state of biodiversity and allow for the development of a considered plan to further protect and restore the natural habitats, and to measure progress over time.' The island currently supports low-impact tourism with two holiday lets and attracts hundreds of visiting sailing boats to the harbours throughout the year, of which there are two on the island.
Daily Record
11-06-2025
- Daily Record
Part of remote Scottish isle once home to famed shark hunter goes up for sale
The former home of shark hunter Tex Geddes, who bought Soay with his wife Jeanne, is now up for sale along with much of the island The former home of Scotland's most famous shark hunter, along with much of the island he once ruled, has hit the market, offering a rare chance to own a piece of Hebridean legend. The property, which belonged to the late Tex Geddes, is now being sold by his family. The sale includes the house itself as well as around 1,500 acres of croftland, roughly 60 per cent of the island of Soay, located off the coast of Skye. Offers over £975,000 are being sought. Geddes, a colourful figure known as much for his exploits at sea as on land, bought the island in 1952 from naturalist Gavin Maxwell, with whom he had previously hunted basking sharks across the Hebrides. The pair operated a shark oil processing plant on Soay, harvesting the prized liver oil of the massive creatures. For over two centuries, these gentle giants were hunted in west coast waters for the commodity. Agents Strutt & Parker described the listing as an 'extremely rare opportunity', noting the property includes a 'large portion' of the island in one of the most dramatic settings in the western Highlands. 'The Island of Soay is located in one of the most dramatic settings in the western highlands, located in the middle of Loch Scavaig,' the listing reads. 'Lying in the shadow of the iconic Black Cuillin mountains of Skye to the north, the island also enjoys panoramic views to the mountains of Knoydart and Ardnamurchan in the east. The other Inner Hebridean islands of Eigg, Muck, Rhum and Canna also provide an interesting seascape to the west.' The house, a traditional stone and slate building set on the shore of Camus nan Gall, includes two public rooms downstairs and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. A former meeting hall has been added to the southern gable. While the property is in need of full renovation, it sits near a cluster of buildings owned by other parties. Access to Soay is by boat from Elgol on Skye. Geddes, who died in 1998, was no ordinary islander. A former boxer, knife thrower and rum runner, he once trained at Meoble Lodge near Lochailort, a Second World War special operations base, where he met Maxwell. Their shark-hunting adventures later became the stuff of legend. In his autobiography Hebridean Sharker, Geddes recounted how they initially hunted using little more than hand harpoons: 'In retrospect some of our early hand harpoons appeared ridiculously inadequate; we might as well have tried to catch a shark with a kitchen fork.' He added: 'Should I live to be a hundred, I will never forget the sight of towing my first shark into Mallaig harbour.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Life on the island also inspired others. Island on the Edge, a memoir by Anne Cholawo, chronicles her decision to move to Soay from London, revealing the unique challenges and magic of life on the edge of civilisation. The land for sale includes a rich mix of pasture, rough grazing, woodland and eight named hill lochs. Agents say it offers outstanding potential for environmental and woodland schemes, as well as opportunities to enjoy the area's 'natural capital'. 'There is also a population of red deer on Soay which offers some stalking for sport and management purposes,' they added. Sailing enthusiasts may also find themselves drawn to the site, thanks to an 'extremely sheltered natural harbour' to the north east of the house.
Scotsman
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Calum Beattie to return to Tiree Music Festival stage where he was 'emerging talent' six years ago
The Tiree Music Festival will take place in July across three days. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Singer songwriter Callum Beattie is set to return to the island music festival where he first made his name as 'emerging talent'. Edinburgh-born Mr Beattie will perform at the Tiree Music Festival (TMF) – six years after his first performance on the festival's platform for emerging talent, the Elevate Stage. The singer has described the location as one of his 'favourite places on Earth'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Beattie is the final headliner to be announced for this year's Inner Hebridean festival. He said: 'Tiree is one of my favourite places on earth and it's the only Scottish festival we are playing this year, before our Hydro show in November. I love it there – great music and great people.' The Elevate Stage will welcome up-and-coming talent in pop, indie, folk and trad to play across three days. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Singer songwriter Callum Beattie. Much-loved folk supergroup Mànran will also take to the Big Top on Sunday in their first visit to Tiree in six years, alongside the Scott Wood Band. Daniel Gillespie, artistic director for Tiree Music Festival, said: 'Callum Beattie is the perfect example of why it's so important to invest in and showcase home-grown talent. 'TMF is all about providing a platform for independent artists who capture the hearts and imaginations of our audiences and we know how beloved Callum is among Tiree audiences, having risen to incredible heights since his first visit to the island.' Acts already announced for TMF's 13th edition include award-winning songbird Julie Fowlis, Tiree legends Skerryvore, Celtic rockers Skipinnish, folk fusion duo The Laurettes and singer songwriter Kirsteen Harvey. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
Times
01-05-2025
- Times
Scotland's coolest island — where Kate and Will are celebrating their anniversary
With its beautiful wild Fairy Pools, its behemoth of a mountain the Old Man of Storr, its distilleries and fine dining, and its crags and hikes, the Isle of Skye has become a must-visit for half the world in recent years. This summer was busier than ever, with the honeypot sites experiencing a rise in visitor numbers, up some 9 per cent on last year, and queues of camper vans cataclysmically long. According to a recent Highland Council report, an estimated 300,000 tourists will cross the Skye Bridge to the island from the mainland this year. And still there is no tourist tax in place to ease pressure on the island's infrastructure. If Edinburgh intends to start charging visitors next summer, surely Skye must follow? While the local authority still procrastinates on that (stupidly, in my opinion, as someone who lives nearby), those in the know, fed up of the crowds, are looking elsewhere. When their attention turns to alternative Inner Hebridean islands, to seek an approximation of what Skye offers — lovely artisan food spots, chic places to stay, awesome scenery — they often find that the place that best ticks the box as a worthy alternative is Mull. As the second largest island in the group after Skye, and lying to the south, Mull rivals its more famous counterpart in all regards. Creating a similarly dramatic impression, it possesses its own powerful feeling of strangeness and remoteness, especially at this time of year when the late-summer light deepens along its ferociously scooped and carved 300-mile coastline, and the 966m peak of Ben More, occluded by mist, has a vaporous magnificence. Right now the swallows are lining up to leave, twisting over dunes as white as the cotton grass that fringes them, and sea lochs are giving way to tracts of russet moorland. Across the island many stylish things continue to appear. No wonder the Prince and Princess of Wales have picked it as the place to spend their 14th wedding anniversary. I was there in July with my boyfriend, Paul, and our dog. Our first stop was the island's capital, Tobermory, where a new restaurant, An Cala Ciuin, occupies the first floor of the Mishnish Hotel. There I found the chef Ross Caithness with his face pressed up against the window, watching the fisherman Alan make his way back across the bay with a full creel. Happily, today's menu would include langoustine tartare; it tastes of everything you have ever loved about seafood, plus hits of citrus and anise, as clear and lucid as the island air (two courses £43pp; The best place to stay in town remains the landmark Western Isles Hotel (est 1883). Positioned on a cliff above Tobermory, it was the location for scenes from Powell and Pressburger's 1945 masterpiece I Know Where I'm Going! — about a young woman trapped on Mull by bad weather and falling in love — which were filmed inside a bar called the Kiloran Room. It's just been reworked by the interior designer and presenter of BBC TV show Designing The Hebrides Banjo Beale, who's from Australia but is a dedicated Mull obsessive, and it now feels like a decadent whisky snug, with walls drenched in an inky, silky blue and velvet chairs orange as the island's sea buckthorn. I adore the relaxed, kindly hotel. It's the perfect autumn destination — a radio playing somewhere, springer spaniels prone in the conservatory. Looking through its windows on a grey day, the Morvern peninsula across the Sound of Mull looks as vague as an etching, as though the very possibility of a mainland were literally receding in the mind (B&B doubles from £100; One muggy day we drove west out of Tobermory, passing 'otters crossing' signs and the occasional car with a fishing rod sticking out of its window. At a bus stop in the middle of nowhere a lone hiker sat on a heavy rucksack engrossed in a book. All the way to Calgary Bay on the northwest shore, the sky was the colour of sardines — a metallic grey seamed with pink and lapis — and we heard plovers piping in the bladderwrack of the bay's white sand. There are several lovely beaches on Mull. Laggan Sands, on the southeast coast alongside Loch Buie, by the remains of the 15th-century Moy Castle, is reached through a path of old oaks and beyond a Bronze Age stone circle. • 17 of the best hotels in Scotland The day was turning clear and hot when we got there (too hot for midges, which now, in autumn, should be gone anyway). We walked past an old lodge house on the way to Moy Castle, and outside there were three pairs of pink children's Crocs, lined up neatly in the garden beside a chalkboard marking recent wildlife spottings: wild goat, mink, porpoise, sea eagle, adder, willow warbler. Fine and soft, the sand was pearly grey, dotted with massive boulders and tiny white shells, and we were the only people on it, the dog nosing the rockpools. At the Old Post Office tearoom nearby, a small crowd of hikers and campers ate black pudding on toast (mains from £4.50; When I stepped for a moment into the austere St Kilda's Church, there was just the low murmuring wind and afternoon light coming through small windows, illuminating a Victorian frieze of New Testament verse. We drove next to stay at a gorgeous shepherd's hut at Treshnish Cottages, which has a white wooden interior that's been delicately painted freehand with a floral design by the local artist Martha Mazur. It's like sleeping inside a jewel box (one night's self-catering for two from £130; From the big orange wood-fired bathtub in the hut's garden, the islands of Coll, Canna, Rum and Skye were smudges in the lilacky distance, giving the impression that they were floating or perpetually in the process of some kind of divine descent. The road south along the coast from the shepherd's hut takes you past the Gribun rocks — sea stacks, fissures and cliffs made of metamorphosed sandstone, jagged into by glaciers 100 million years ago. Later, when I was walking past, they appeared so glowering and dreadful that when I saw that a little wooden boat pulled up on the shore was named 'Rumpus' I just laughed at its nerve. There is a small catch to visiting Mull, or perhaps it's a benefit, as it keeps crowds at bay for now. Due to ageing vessels and cancellations, the intermittent unpredictability of the 40-minute CalMac ferry service there from Oban, where I live, can make arrangements tricky. A modernised fleet is promised by 2026, but in the meantime it's worth persisting. Once there, life is easy. Your only delays are likely to be caused by temptation. You can't drive two minutes in any direction along Mull's single-tracked roads without seeing a homemade 'for sale' sign. Eggs, jam, watercolours — everybody's making something, and many of the pop-up stalls and honesty boxes offer shop-grade produce. The new Isle of Mull Candles at Pennyghael has hand-poured candles so aromatic you scarcely need to light them (@isleofmullcandles); the Piece Box, a micro-bakery and takeaway in the village of Dervaig, sells crab flatbreads with chilli butter and, for the next couple of weeks in the season, pastries made with the last of Dervaig's rhubarb ( Nothing about any of these enterprises on the island feels remotely generic. The shepherd's hut comes with a wood-fired bathtub in the garden TRESHNISH HOLIDAY COTTAGES COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED My boyfriend — raised in Oban — used to spend his summers as a young teenager helping on a farm on Mull, readying the sheep for sale with two old farmers. One time we were walking up a road on the island and he suddenly pointed to a field and said: 'That's where I stood and wished I was one year older.' A year older and he could leave school and feel as free as this all the time. I could see that for Paul the memory, this elation of being on Mull, had real intensity. I thought of it when we stopped into Ardalanish Weavers on the southwest coast. It produces handsome tweed blankets on a loom powered by wind and solar and then dyed with plants from the island: nettle and woad, ragwort and daffodil. Its Sea Pinks shawl, dyed with madder root and camomile, ought to be on everyone's Christmas list ( • 11 of the best Scottish islands to visit We walked towards Ardalanish Beach below, where out to sea, beyond pink granite boulders and pink-silver sand, lay the isle of Colonsay. The Paps of Jura lie further south, and to the east the Slate Islands of Luing and Scarba. Behind us was a near-empty campsite in a large meadow full of buttercups and red clover (pitches £15 a night; Pulling slowly up past us came a car with a dad and three daughters inside, the youngest kicking the door open with her bare feet and doing a series of cartwheels directly from the back seat onto the flowers: pure joy. As her sisters dragged the tent from the boot to a good pitch, their father rested his head back on his seat, and closed his eyes. Whichever ferry they had caught, it was the right one. Antonia Quirke travelled independently. Return ferries from Oban cost from £49 for two people with a car ( This article contains affiliate links that can earn us revenue Where else to stay and eat on Mull Craigaig Bothy, Ulva Craigaig Bothy is fantastically off-grid ALEX MACLEOD Another fabulous place to stay requires a shorter, more reliable ferry hop from Mull to the community-owned Isle of Ulva, population 16. Here, after a two-mile hike — or a paddle round the coast in a kayak — you'll find the most fantastic off-grid stone bothy to rent, its old stone interior softly remodelled by Banjo Beale, with croft beds, and a front door painted yellow as a flame so it might be seen through any storm. Details Where to eat Croft 3 Croft 3 on the west coast serves exceptional food in an uplifting building like a Nordic chapel. No wonder it recently won an architectural award. Order the gorse flower negroni, and focaccia with haggis (mains from £8; Mull Bread Box At Ballygown, the Mull Bread Box does a sourdough loaf that's meltingly light rather than the usual chewy chore (from £5; @mullbreadbox). The Glass Barn Just outside Tobermory, the Glass Barn café uses its own Isle of Mull cheese in its dishes, served in a conservatory slung with vines. It also sells a delicious powerful spirit made from whey and steeped in botanicals, called Elixir of Sage, with a sweet undertow of eucalyptus (mains from £8.50;
