Renovating History - Six astonishing Landmark Trust properties

The building is of white-painted harled whinstone with a conical crimson turret, like a unicorn’s horn, and it sits sheltered where a wide meadow puckers into a shallow ravine. Just over the horizon, the Atlantic crashes against the coast, but you can’t see or hear it. Here, birdsong chimes with the thrum of the burn that once fed the mill. Within the deep walls, the ceiling is suspended on thick dark beams. A grandfather clock is ticking, and deep armchairs fill corners. An Old Chelsea China tea set is laid out on the table. Just through the door, a piece of the original mill machinery stands, as if on pause. Tangy Mill is ready for its next guests.

This early 19th-century watermill on the Kintyre Peninsula is now one of 21 Landmark Trust properties in Scotland (most are in England and a few in Italy) that are rented out as self-catering holiday accommodation. Like all the others, it was rescued by the trust that philanthropist Sir John Smith and his wife Christian founded in 1965 to restore smaller historic buildings and open them to guests to pay for their maintenance.