Corrour Lodge

Corrour Lodge, Moshe Safdie & Assocs, with Ne Begg, 1999-2004 Shooting lodge at the head of Loch Ossian, built of silvery Portuguese granite, steel and glass between the surviving arms of its Edwardian predecessor. A hard-edged, geometric composition in an idiom daringly alien to the Highlands, it nonetheless expresses something of the stark grandeur of its surrounds. There is a suggestion, too, of tower and broch-like forms in the principal blocks - one rectilinear, one cylindrical - rent by glass semi-conical or pyramidal shafts which thrust up through the masonry like shards of ice. Behind, a vast glazed barrel roof rolls down from a crenellated parapet towards two single-storey, curving, flatroofed extensions - a pair of library/studies. The interior juxtaposes granite-pillared austerity with a strong Scandanavian vein: 20th-century and contemporary furnishings, paintings and textiles mixed with some antiques, all viewed, thanks to the great shafts of glass, against the glorious backdrop of Loch Ossian and its plantations, and the wilder hills beyond. The Edwardian crowstepped wings now accommodate two cottages and estate office on the left (formerly the old schoolhouse and deer larder), and a detached self catering cottage in the former chapel on the right, atmospherically panelled with distressed timber planks, and with box beds and other folksy fittings. Garden Architectural layout by L. and J. Falconer, c.1904, but very much the creation of the Stirling Maxwells; restored and revived with looser naturalistic planting by Jinny Blom, 2004. Curving steps lead down from the lodge to a sub-alpine garden on the margin of the Loch. There is a circular lily pond, in the middle of which stood Hew Lorimer's statue of Orpheus (now moved to the edge of the terrace), below which a rockery of latticed beds descends to a polygonal stone landing stage. Other outlets for Stirling Maxwell's horticultural interests at Corrour were his arboretum, rhododendron garden, and pioneering conifer plantations of 1892. A recent addition is Antony Gormley's sculpture Hear and Hear in a pine grove by the old steamer pier. Nearby is a grass-roofed sauna, a prefabricated timber kit imported from Norway. Complex of ancillary buildings south of the Lodge, refurbished or rebuilt 2004 by Morris & Steedman Assocs. These include reinstated kennels, workshop, stables, gillies' flat, deerlarder, boathouse and community hall. Whitewashed buildings with curly skewputts of the 1890s, now refurbished, with external timberwork refreshed in the estate's trademark arctic blue, include: the Head Stalker's House and its cute partner, the Doll's House (former gardener's cottage); Corrie Creagach, a complex of staff cottages (now available for self-catering lets), and the former stables/coach house.

[The first Corrour Lodge, some 3 miles to the south of Loch Ossian on Carn Dearg, was 'the highest shooting lodge in Scotland, being 1,723 ft above the sea level'. Used as a sanitorium in the early 20th century, it was de-roofed in the 1930s and is now a gaunt ruin.]

[Corrour Lodge, by Frank College of Wharr and College, Glasgow, 1897; alterations and additions such as crowstepped dormers by L. and J. Falconer of Fort William, 1904; altered and extended by Reginald Fairlie, 1935; devastated by fire in 1942.]

[After the fire of 1942, Sir John Stirling Maxwell wrote to Reginald Fairlie that 'the new house should be the sort of thing that William Adam might have built for Lord Huntly, then owner of Corrour ...'. But the gaunt granite pile of the fire-ravaged lodge was left standing as a ruin until the 1950s, when all but the former chapel with linking cloister, game larder, gun room and schoolroom was demolished. Fairlie's replacement design - a truncated version of the original - never materialised; instead, a shingled bungalow stood here, 1958-99.]

[Access to Old Corrour Lodge was over the hill from Loch Rannoch, by means of the old drovers' road to the West. In 1894 the West Highland Line opened and a track was made from Corrour Station to Loch Ossian, extended in 1895 to the old lodge. Guests to the new lodge arrived at Corrour Station and were taken to a boat house (a hostel since 1931) at the south west end of the Loch, and from thence up the Loch by steam yacht. Later, in 1910, a road was constructed along the lochside to the new lodge at its head, cars being transported to Corrour by train. An access track from the north east was completed by the Forestry Commission in 1972.]

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

Corrour Lodge built 1894 and burnt down April 1942. New lodge built on same site 1959.

Architect:- Reginald Fairlie 1935. Alterations and additions for Sir John Stirling Maxwell.

Photocopied letter from a collection of correspondence between Sir John Stirling Maxwell and Reginald Fairlie,(bib no 26978),

RF MSS NMRS Letter 46:

'This house was first built architects Wharrig and Colledge Glasgow 1897-8 It was altered and enlarged at various times from 1905 to 1936. It was destroyed by fire April 1942 and rebuilt 19?? Architect Reginald Fairlie RSA LLD.'

R Fairlie Mss NMRS:

'I interfered so much in the first building that Frank Colledge never had a chance but we must in gratitude record his name as he took a lot of trouble and gave us a good job'