Caithness View Luxury Farm Lodges

Three lodges on a farm that is still worked

Barrock Mains is a sheep and cattle farm, and the lodges sit on the hill above the steading with the fields dropping away in front of them. The farming year carries on around you, from indoor lambing at the end of March to the silage cutting at the end of July. Guests are welcome at the lambing shed, and a map in each lodge marks the walking routes across the farm.

Inside, each lodge is one vaulted open plan space with a floor to ceiling window facing the view, a double bed and a double sofa bed in that space, and a separate twin bedroom off it. The kitchen has an electric oven and hob, a fridge freezer, and a breakfast bar, with crockery and six of each glass and place setting. Bedding and towels are included in the daily rate.

What makes this site rather than the lodges is the BBQ hut. Each lodge has its own, a timber hut with a fire in the middle and seating for up to twelve, with its own crockery, the BBQ tools, and a bag of charcoal. It is why a wet evening in Caithness does not have to be an evening indoors, and it is the only place on the farm where a fire may be lit.

The three lodges

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

Lyth is inland and quiet, on the single track roads between Wick and the north coast, and the owners put it at four miles off the NC500 and six miles south of John o' Groats. That is close enough to the top of the country to do all of Caithness from one base, and far enough off the route to sleep.

Castle of Mey is along the coast to the west, and the road past the lodges is one of the ways to reach it. Dunnet Bay, three miles of sand, is ten minutes away by the owners' reckoning, and Loch Watten, known for its trout, is five. Wick is ten minutes, for the supermarkets, Old Pulteney, and Castle Sinclair Girnigoe on the cliffs north of the town.

The coastal trail at John o' Groats runs past the seabird colonies, where the RSPB leads walks between May and August, when the puffins are in. Lyth Arts Centre puts on live performances from March to September.