Bishops Bay Cottage

Bedrooms down, living room up

Bishops Bay Cottage is built the other way up from most houses. Both bedrooms are on the ground floor, each with its own en suite, and the stairs take you up to the open plan kitchen, dining and living space and out onto a south facing balcony with the loch and the woods in front of it. It puts the view where you spend the evening rather than where you sleep.

The cottage sits in the grounds of Dunbeg House, south of the B863 on the way down to the water. The garden runs into a grassy path and the path runs to the shore of Loch Leven, so the loch is a walk rather than a drive, and there is a fire pit out there for the end of the day.

Inside there is underfloor heating throughout as well as the Chesney stove, which between them handle a wet March week. The kitchen has an eye-level oven, a ceramic hob with an extractor, a dishwasher, a microwave, and a Nespresso machine, and the upstairs room also holds an office corner with a desk and a second television.

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

The cottage is on the A82 immediately after the Ballachulish bridge, the junction this corner of the Highlands runs through. Glencoe is south of the bridge, and the Pap of Glencoe stands at the far end of the loch in front of you. The owners put Fort William at 15 miles, which brings Ben Nevis, the Nevis Range gondola up Aonach Mor, and the closing miles of the West Highland Way within a morning.

They give Oban as 32.4 miles and 52 minutes for the ferries and the seafood, Glasgow as 87 miles, and Edinburgh as 122. There is a bus stop near the cottage, and the Caledonian Sleeper runs from London Euston to Fort William, so a stay here need not start with a long drive.