Latest news with #InverlairLodge
CTV News
3 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Remote Scottish lodge used to house foreign secret agents in WWII up for sale
Inverlair Lodge has six bedrooms and four reception rooms. (Galbraith via CNN Newsource) A remote Scottish lodge used to keep foreign secret agents far away from trouble during the Second World War is now up for sale. Nestled deep in the Scottish Highlands, Inverlair Lodge was requisitioned by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an espionage and sabotage organization Britain created during World War II, before transforming back into a family home – now on the market for offers over £1.35 million (US$1.8 million). Surrounded by countryside and 17 miles (27 kilometres) from the town of Fort William, it is far from prying eyes. Known as 'Number 6 Special Workshop School,' the lodge was used to house foreign agents who 'had fallen by the wayside,' according to its former commander, Alfred Fyffe, who detailed his three-year tenure in interviews with London's Imperial War Museum in 2002. These were agents who had gone through initial training but, for whatever reason, could not be deployed, according to the 2008 book 'British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources,' by historians Edward Hampshire, Stephen Twigge and Graham Macklin. Lodge Nazi chief Rudolf Hess was briefly held in the lodge. (Galbraith via CNN Newsource) The agents were housed 'under surveillance, not under guard,' Fyffe stressed, adding that they were sent there 'to forget what they learned about our subversive business' because they had 'certain information which, if they were released outside the services, could be dangerous to this country.' Housing agents of different nationalities like this 'under one roof' was an 'experiment' said Fyffe. He was charged with occupying their time and set aside one room – the larder – to use as a cell if there was any trouble. 'If you have to use it, use it within reason,' his superiors told him. Fyffe kept the agents busy by sending them to salvage metal scattered all over the countryside and getting them to mend boots. Just three agents were there when he took over the lodge, one of them an Italian engineer who had been a lieutenant to the country's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, until they fell out and he fled to France, where he worked with the Communists. Before Fyffe arrived, the first two people housed there tried to run away, though he said he 'never had any trouble' – apart from a Dutchman who hit someone in the jaw and broke down the wall outside his office. Rudolf Hess, a top Nazi who secretly flew to the U.K. in 1941 as a self-appointed negotiator, was briefly held at the lodge, too, while he was being interrogated by intelligence officers, real estate agent Galbraith said, though Fyffe does not mention this. Inverlair lodge The house is in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands. (Galbraith via CNN Newsource) The SOE ceased to exist after World War II and Inverlair became derelict until it was renovated in the 1970s. Few traces of the lodge's history remain. Nowadays, it is a large, comfortable family home like many others in Scotland – many of its rooms have woodburning stoves, and its kitchen island is painted a jaunty yellow. There are four reception rooms, six bedrooms, outbuildings – including a separate two-bedroom cottage – and 30.88 acres of land. The property listing can be viewed here.
BBC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Lochaber's Inverlair Lodge: World War Two secret agents' house put up for sale
A Highland house where "troublesome" secret agents were kept busy during World War Two has been put up for Lodge was taken over in 1941 by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an army of saboteurs and guerrilla fighters formed to fight behind enemy residents were foreign nationals who had been unable to perform their duties but needed to be kept safe because of the dangerous secrets they knew about the Allied war by British soldiers, the agents were kept occupied with a range of tasks including mending boots and salvaging scrap metal from the surrounding countryside. Estate agents Galbraith has put the 18th Century property on the market for offers over £1.3m. Six-bedroom Inverlair Lodge, near Tulloch, about 20 miles (32km) from Fort William, was chosen because of its remote WW2 it was known as No. 6 Special Workshop interviews with the Imperial War Museum, Dundee-born Alfred Fyffe told how he was put in charge of Inverlair for 30 said the residents, who included Italians and Dutch, were supervised but not kept under armed guard and were even allowed to make trips into Fort Fyffe described the lodge as an "experiment" with agents of different nationalities living under one roof, and working on tasks designed to distract them from the secrets they of their jobs was salvaging metal, including railway track, abandoned by British Aluminium which operated a smelter in Fort Lodge and similar SOE properties are said to have inspired the plot to 1960s TV drama The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan. War-time prime minister Winston Churchill enthusiastically supported the formation of SOE, and ordered its agents to "set Europe ablaze".Its history was an inspiration for film director Guy Ritchie's 2024 action-comedy The Ministry of Ungentlemanly was disbanded after the war and Inverlair Lodge was vacated and fell into disrepair. It was restored in the was a key training area for Allied forces during Castle, the ancestral home of the chiefs of Clan Cameron and about 15 miles (24km) north east of Fort William, was used as commando training elite troops were from Britain and the US as well as France, the Netherlands, Norway, former Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium.
