Highland Fling

At Katharine Pooley’s striking Scottish escape, historic details, tradition and heritage combine to create a rural idyll

- Emma J Page

Roaring log fires, flickering candlelight, sumptuous decorations and plenty of foliage foraged from surrounding woodland: these are the magical ingredients that make the season special at the home of interior designer Katharine Pooley.

A fortified house located in the Scottish Highlands, this is no ordinary escape. Built in 1560 to protect the entrance to the Balloch Pass to Glenshee, the house was destroyed in a fire around a century later. The building’s chequered past stirred the imagination of Katharine’s father Robert, who bought it and began a painstaking restoration in 1988, rebuilding it brick by brick, before passing it on to his daughter fifteen years ago.