History of Eddrachilles
Autumn sunrise over Eddrachilles Hotel. Showing the service area of the original manse (today's dining room) and to the right some of our hotel bedrooms in a wing sympathetically added in the 20th Century
The 200+years old building we know as Eddrachilles Hotel is part of North Highland heritage and social history. a former parish manse. It is a listed Historic Building, under the name of Eddrachillis House. However, this building, sympathetically extended in the 20th century, has always been characterful heritage rather than grand.
Today the walls still hold a distinctive sense of place, closely bonded to the “rough quarter of Eddrachillis”, with its wild and wonderful landscape but also to the sea. The white building directly above Badcall Bay has served for centuries as an admiralty way marker bringing sailors safely to shelter. Most of all it is filled with the memories and stories of “extraordinary, ordinary” people who have lived here and hereabouts….
The term “manse” is the equivalent of a vicarage or parsonage, a home for a Protestant minister, his family and retainers. For decades it would also have been the hub of parish life and witness to countless moments of joy and sadness as well as thelogical and ideological/social debates over schisms and the clearances.
Serving a large area, vague references to an Eddrachillis/Eddrachilles parish go back into the 1630’s' but what we know as the old the manse at Badcall, now Eddrachilles Hotel, was probably started around the end of the 18th century and went through several phases of construction. Think of the difficulties posed. by the rough landscapes of NW Sutherland with its absence of a road network and the lack of good forests. TImbers for the roof - the original are still in place today,- would have likely come by sea from forested areas of Scotland,
The Duke of Sutherland’s gift to the Church of Scotland included some 300 acres mainly in moorland, grazing, with a few fields from a farm, a loch and even an island in the bay). This glebe is the inspiration for the local larder used by our restaurant. The Glebe Kitchen, today.
The 20th century wing created a hotell.
HOW DID A CHURCH MANSE BECOME A HOTEL?
By the 1900’s the Church of Scotland no longer needed a manse at Badcall. Scourie, 2 miles to north over a steep hill, was now the main centre of population and most people had joined the separate Free Presbyterian Church. The white church building at Badcall was retained for occasional services but gradually fell into disrepair. It was sold by the Church in the 1960's and converted into a holiday home.
The former manse itself was bought in 1929 by Colonel Cuthbert, a First World War hero, and then provided a family home through the Second World War for his heirs. Under a family trust it was then offered as a convalescent home for nurses but proved to be too remote. Some former agricultural buildings had been sold and these operated more successfully in the 1950's as a remote Youth Hostel . Occasionally we have guests at the hotel who fondly remember visiting the very basic hostel as youngsters.
The former manse and remaining lands were again sold in the 1960s. After the building of the new A894 road the house was extended to create a small hotel in the 1980s. The hotel with about 3 acres of grounds was sold separately from the rest of the policies in 2003.