Amhuinnsuidhe Castle is hired as a whole, for private groups of up to 18 guests who stay in its 12 bedrooms. The house comes fully staffed and catered, and the stay can be built around fishing, stalking, walking and long dinners at a single table. The castle stands on the coast of North Harris, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, on the road to Hushinish.
Rooms and capacities
The estate offers two exclusive-use formats as a guide: 12 guests in up to 8 bedrooms, or up to 18 guests using all 12 bedrooms. Larger formats include more estate ghillies, and both include fishing and a day of stalking. The team often builds a tailored package around a group's plans. The principal rooms sit on the first floor, as was usual in Scottish castles of the period. They include a drawing room with sea views, a grand hall where a group can gather, a billiard room with a snooker table and a dining room with one long banqueting-size table. The public rooms have high ceilings and are furnished with antiques and paintings.
Accommodation
The 12 bedrooms are in the castle itself. The house is let on an exclusive-use basis, so a group has the whole building and its staff. The estate also publishes set weeks when individual rooms can be booked, for example a fishing week in July 2027. Reasort Estates, which runs the castle, also lets cottages on Harris.
Catering
Breakfast and dinner are served at one sitting at the long table, in a dining room that looks over the water. Dinner is a set menu, and the kitchen caters for all dietary needs. Ingredients come from producers across Scotland, and most of the seafood is landed close to the castle. Drinks are charged separately.
History and setting
The architect David Bryce designed the castle, built in 1865 for Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore. His mother, Lady Catherine, supported the early Harris Tweed industry. First called Fincastle, the house has long been run as a sporting lodge. It holds an important collection of paintings by William McTaggart, the Scottish landscape and sea painter. The estate covers more than 50,000 acres of hills, lochs and coast. Sea trout and salmon fishing runs from June to October with resident ghillies, and red deer stalking and walked-up shooting are offered, as well as a Macnab challenge. From the front of the castle a path leads to a sea pool and waterfall where salmon can be watched, and the castle looks over Loch Leosavay to the island of Taransay and the beaches of South Harris. Red deer, otters and seals are often seen, and golden eagles hunt along the Hushinish road.
Getting there
Stornoway, on Lewis, has the island's airport and main ferry port. Loganair flies there from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness in about one hour, and Caledonian MacBrayne ferries sail from Ullapool to Stornoway. A second ferry links Uig, on Skye, with Tarbert on Harris. The castle is on the road to Hushinish, northwest of Tarbert.
