Pentland Road - 2

I am very pleased to be able to report that Scottish Natural Heritage, who own and manage the nature reserve of the Isle of Rum in the Inner Hebrides, has signed over assets worth £257,000 to the island's community association. Rum has a checkered history, and it is a good thing that the island's residents, after 190 years, get control of their homes and village. Rum's indigenous Hebrideans were expelled from the island in 1821, to make way for sheep, later deer. In the late 19th century, the island was bought by a Lancashire family of industrialists, the Bulloughs, who made their fortune in the textile industries. They built a folly-type castle at Kinloch, filled with the most mind-boggling and jaw-dropping artefacts. Some amongst the ugliest pieces I've ever clapped eyes on. After the First World War, the castle began to fall into disuse, and the last member of the Bullough family passed away in 1957. Lady Monica was carried the hard eight miles to Har...

The Duke of Rothesay, Prince Charles. has visited the Isle of Rum, south of Skye, to see what needs to be done to preserve Kinloch Castle. This red sandstone edifice, erected in 1897, was put up with no expenses spared by an industrialist from Accrington, Lancashire. George Bullough had accumulated great wealth through the Globe textile works. These have since closed. Kinloch Castle in its heyday, before the First World War, was built and fitted out to make your jaw drop. It had heated conservatories and heated pools, in which tropical creatures swam. When guests were shown into the place, the first room, the ballroom, was an image of opulence. A grand piano stands on a tigerskin. Vases from Japan, up to 8 feet tall, stand in the gallery upstairs. A monkey eagle, capable of taking apes, rears up in a frightening pose. A huge orchestrian can blast out any tune that is available on the requisite roll, much like a piano roll. A bathroom with (I think) 14 different types o...