Around Aberfeldy
Taybank Bar on Countryfile
We were delighted to see our bar, over-bar light and curved bar shelves feature prominently on Countryfile on BBC1 last Sunday (11th August) when the Countryfile team visited The Taybank pub in Dunkeld.
We designed, made and installed the bar transforming a semi-derelict room into a warm inspirational place connected to the River Tay seen through the large Georgian windows. The bar, over-bar light, curved shelving and window seat were made in a gorgeous Brown Oak.
The dramatic prow-like shape of the bar references the Viking raiders who came up the River Tay to raid the early Celtic Christian Church in 903. This is now the lovely Dunkeld Cathedral (dating to the 14th century) now a parish church and ruin.
Further upriver in the hamlet of Dull (just past us in Aberfeldy) was an even earlier monastery, founded by St Adomnan in the 8th-century. The monastery was a centre for scholarship, or early university and locally we are proud that it is one of the first university’s of Scotland. (After Iona Abbey established in 563 but well before St Andrew’s University established in 1413, Glasgow University established 1451 and Edinburgh established 1582). Little remains of the monastery today but an 8th century cross can be seen in the village and another early cross links to Iona Abbey. Our valley was part of a pilgrim route between Iona and St Andrew’s.
Here is a link to Countryfile
Photoshoot at Balnakeilly
Recently we had a lovely photoshoot at the magnificent Balnakeilly, a recently restored Georgian mansion and 2000 acre estate above Pitlochry. Thank you photographer Susie Lowe.
The original house house was owned by the Stewart-Wilson family for almost 500 hundred years until the death of Colonel Ralf Stewart-Wilson the 11th laird in 2016. It has recently been restored by Danish property investor Dan Svenningsen and managed by Sophie McGown who led the interior design introducing a mix of contemporary, colourful Scottish and Nordic elements to original artefacts.
It is huge views, lovely grounds and is a wonderful place for big gatherings. It is now available to hire.
The Beast in Aberfeldy
snow angel
snowy Landrover
our Olympic luge
In Aberfeldy we were on the northern edge of the severe weather brought by the Beast From The East. The amount of snow was typical for March but the quality of the snow was very different. Our weather usually comes with the prevailing wind from the West. Normally the snow has soft wet flakes, large enough to see the crystalline structure of each flake, which can be felt on eyelashes. The weather feels raw. This snow from the East was fine like icing sugar and blown in to distinctive drifting patterns whether against an individual stalk of grass or trees or whipped into stringy candy floss mounds. The weather felt bitter.