Castledown
Well-known member
Situated in an amazingly isolated spot, Vallay house is an impressive Edwardian mansion which has been empty since the mid forties. Along with its few outbuildings it is the sole occupant of Vallay island off the north coast of North Uist and is accessible only at low tide across a wide strand.
I'd had my eye on this one for some time and managed to get here during a tour of the Western Isles in June 2009. I wasn't too confident about a successful explore due to the hit and miss nature of access but it turned out to be a great visit. I reckon there would be about a 6 hour window you could make it seeing as I turned up around 3 hours before low tide and walked it no problem in half an hour.
The place has quite an interesting history:
Vallay House was built between 1902 and 1905 for Erskine Beveridge, a linen manufacturer from Dunfermline who bought the island having fallen in love with the setting. Fresh water was piped over from North Uist and electricity presumably created by a generator on the island. The house was originally beatifully decorated with different coloured fireplaces in every room and numerous round stained glass windows displaying the initials EB. The building was supposed to have 365 panes of glass in its structure and cost around £8000 to build - roughly £2,000,000 in today's money. Erskine Beveridge was a pioneering photographer (a book of his photographs has just been published entitled 'Wanderings with a camera in Scotland') and also undertook a number of archaeological excavations on the island before his death in 1920. The house was then inherited by his son George who lived there until he drowned while crossing the strand one night in Novemeber 1945. After this the contents of the house were auctioned off and it has been abandoned ever since.
Considering the amount of time the place has been empty it's in reasonable condition, but with sections of the roof and internal floors having collapsed it probably won't be long before only the shell remains sadly.
I'd had my eye on this one for some time and managed to get here during a tour of the Western Isles in June 2009. I wasn't too confident about a successful explore due to the hit and miss nature of access but it turned out to be a great visit. I reckon there would be about a 6 hour window you could make it seeing as I turned up around 3 hours before low tide and walked it no problem in half an hour.
The place has quite an interesting history:
Vallay House was built between 1902 and 1905 for Erskine Beveridge, a linen manufacturer from Dunfermline who bought the island having fallen in love with the setting. Fresh water was piped over from North Uist and electricity presumably created by a generator on the island. The house was originally beatifully decorated with different coloured fireplaces in every room and numerous round stained glass windows displaying the initials EB. The building was supposed to have 365 panes of glass in its structure and cost around £8000 to build - roughly £2,000,000 in today's money. Erskine Beveridge was a pioneering photographer (a book of his photographs has just been published entitled 'Wanderings with a camera in Scotland') and also undertook a number of archaeological excavations on the island before his death in 1920. The house was then inherited by his son George who lived there until he drowned while crossing the strand one night in Novemeber 1945. After this the contents of the house were auctioned off and it has been abandoned ever since.
Considering the amount of time the place has been empty it's in reasonable condition, but with sections of the roof and internal floors having collapsed it probably won't be long before only the shell remains sadly.
