The Best Cottages on Skye

The Crofter’s House is a whitewashed cottage of the 1830s in the hamlet of Camustianavaig, at the foot of Ben Tianavaig. It’s a couple of minutes’ walk from a pebbly bay where seals and otters live, and sea eagles hunt along the coast, so bring binoculars.

It has been done up for two, and it’s bright and simple inside, with a wood-burning stove. What makes it so useful is where it sits. It feels like the end of the road, but Portree is five miles away, which puts you in the middle of the island for days out in every direction.

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Wood h is the family house from the same owners, on a headland above Loch Pooltiel at the far north-west corner of the island. Dualchas designed it with Heb Homes in the shape of an old Scottish longhouse, and every room looks out to sea.

It sleeps six in two king-size suites, a twin room and a bunk room for the children. A long wall of glass runs across the living room, with a big wood-burning stove for the wild days. A gate from the house lets you straight out onto the coast, and after dark there isn’t a street light for miles.

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Lochview is a modern house for four that looks across Loch Dunvegan towards the Outer Hebrides. The living space is built round a double-sided wood stove, with a cinema screen for wet evenings, a granite-topped kitchen and big glass doors onto the garden.

There are two bedrooms, one in soft pink and one in powder blue, each with a super-king bed and its own shower room. The garden is the treat: it has a Scandinavian wood-fired hot tub and a barrel sauna, both with the view.

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Half of One is a whitewashed crofter’s cottage of the 19th century, alone at the end of a single-track road on the cliffs of Trotternish. It has four bedrooms, and one of them has a bath that looks out through a wall of glass. There’s an open fire in the living room and a telescope at the dining room window.

You can watch the sunrise light the peninsula from the house, and look for seals, otters, sea eagles and sometimes dolphins in the bay below. A five-minute walk takes you to a quiet beach, and on from there to Brothers Point.

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Ptarmigan Cottage sits 15 metres from the shore of Broadford Bay. It’s a traditional cottage with three bedrooms that has been turned into a very comfortable hideaway for two. Upstairs, a seven-foot emperor bed looks out over the bay, and the bathroom has two roll-top baths side by side.

The lounge has a piano, a tide clock and a pair of giant binoculars for watching the otters. In the garden there’s a Swedish sauna that looks over the water, with an outdoor bath beside it, hot and cold. A tandem bicycle and wellies are waiting for you too.

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This must be the most romantic address on Skye. A short boat ride from the pier at Isleornsay brings you to the white Ornsay Lighthouse, on its own small island. Eilean Sionnach means the island of the fox, and the naturalist Gavin Maxwell, who wrote Ring of Bright Water, once called it home.

The old keeper’s cottage sleeps eight, with a wood-burning stove and views down the Sound of Sleat to the mainland hills. The children can go rock-pooling and crabbing right outside the door. Dogs are welcome.

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