Kinloch Lodge: A Place to Come Back To

On the southern edge of Skye, where the roads begin to narrow and the woodland reaches down to the loch, Kinloch Lodge sits quietly among the trees. White-walled and low-set, it appears almost tucked in—a house with history rather than grandeur. The mountains are behind it, the sea in front. It is easy to understand why someone might want to stay. Harder, perhaps, to imagine ever really leaving.

“Kinloch Lodge was, quite simply, my childhood home,” says Isabella Macdonald of the 17th-century Clan Macdonald hunting lodge on the Sleat Peninsula, a beacon of white in a wooded loch-side wilderness. Thirty years later, after working in London and Edinburgh, she now manages the hotel that her parents set up in 1972. As a child she helped with check-ins between “all sorts of other adventures”; now she likes to welcome guests “as if old family friends”.

She might encourage them to sink into the sofas in the sitting room and pop a log on the fire, linger in the bar with a dram of whisky, or just gaze at the views. Through the dining room windows, the spiky outline of the Cuillin mountains interrupts the sky. The front door opens onto the steely waters of Loch na Dal, home to dolphins, seals and even orca. “You might be lucky and see a golden eagle soaring on the thermals above,” says Isabella.

The Sleat Peninsula is, says Isabella, one of Skye’s quieter corners. “This gives Kinloch a slower appeal.” One of her favourite walks is from the hotel grounds through the woods, where chanterelles grow in the autumn, to the lost village of Leitir Fura, a haunting collection of blackhouse remains.

Days are best rounded off in the restaurant, hung with clan portraits, where head chef Jordan Webb makes a daily changing menu from produce grown in the hotel’s polytunnels, or ingredients from the woods and loch shore foraged by ghillie Mitchell Patridge. If Isabella had to choose a favourite dish, it would be the hand-dived scallops, “because Skye’s seafood is some of the finest in the world.” It’s easy to see why her childhood home lured her back.

What are the must-sees in your neighbourhood?

Torabhaig Distillery, Skye’s newest whisky distillery, has a terrific tour and visitor centre.
Armadale Castle, with its atmospheric gardens and brilliant museum, was previously the home of my clan. Today, the museum tells their epic story.