Visited with my best mate from high school who had been here a good few years back. It is remote as fuck so I have never bothered making the journey and he has been bugging me to go for at least 3 years now. We were out for a long overdue catch up and an explore for old times sake, we had a fail elsewhere and thought fuck it and headed over. I am kicking myself for not going sooner as it is in a very sorry state now and someone has had a bit of a clear out. None the less, still an incredible place with some great history and I really enjoyed photographing it. The locals are keeping an eye on the place. We were there for a good few hours and in that time the place was checked twice by different people.
History:
Inverailort House began as a farmhouse, but was rebuilt as a shooting lodge in 1875 and further extended in 1891. The wife of the owner of Inverailort House, Christian Cameron, was a keen photographer in the late 19th Century. She took many photographs of the house and surrounding area but most of the glass plates were lost or destroyed when the military took over the house during World War II but the surviving photographs have been published in a book. Christian Cameron is said to have died of a broken heart after much of the contents of the house were badly damaged by the army when they emptied it.
During the Second World War, Inverailort was one of the few mansions in the area used as a training base by agents of the Special Operations Executive. Here British agents were taught ruthless techniques of intelligence gathering, sabotage and survival later directly adopted by the American CIA. This was requisitioned by the War Office at the end of May 1940 for use in the training of irregular forces as the Special Training Centre. Initially this was operated by MI(R) but became part of Combined Operations. Many techniques of guerilla and irregular warfare were developed there and training techniques which were adopted for Commando training. SOE training was centred on nearby Arisaig House. The army moved out of the house on 20 August 1942 and it was then taken over by the Royal Navy when it became HMS Lochailort and used for the training of naval cadet ratings to be officers on small craft used by Combined Operations. The Royal Navy moved out in January 1945.
I have been dying to see this ridiculous wall of bottles since my mate sent me a pic from his visit. I could have spent ages rummaging through them but thought better of it given the frequency of checks on the place and the noise it would have made.
Thanks for looking!
History:
Inverailort House began as a farmhouse, but was rebuilt as a shooting lodge in 1875 and further extended in 1891. The wife of the owner of Inverailort House, Christian Cameron, was a keen photographer in the late 19th Century. She took many photographs of the house and surrounding area but most of the glass plates were lost or destroyed when the military took over the house during World War II but the surviving photographs have been published in a book. Christian Cameron is said to have died of a broken heart after much of the contents of the house were badly damaged by the army when they emptied it.
During the Second World War, Inverailort was one of the few mansions in the area used as a training base by agents of the Special Operations Executive. Here British agents were taught ruthless techniques of intelligence gathering, sabotage and survival later directly adopted by the American CIA. This was requisitioned by the War Office at the end of May 1940 for use in the training of irregular forces as the Special Training Centre. Initially this was operated by MI(R) but became part of Combined Operations. Many techniques of guerilla and irregular warfare were developed there and training techniques which were adopted for Commando training. SOE training was centred on nearby Arisaig House. The army moved out of the house on 20 August 1942 and it was then taken over by the Royal Navy when it became HMS Lochailort and used for the training of naval cadet ratings to be officers on small craft used by Combined Operations. The Royal Navy moved out in January 1945.
I have been dying to see this ridiculous wall of bottles since my mate sent me a pic from his visit. I could have spent ages rummaging through them but thought better of it given the frequency of checks on the place and the noise it would have made.
Thanks for looking!
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