Church Hill House

A Highland house you can reach by train

Most houses of this kind in the Cairngorms come with a long single track approach and a car you cannot do without. Church Hill House sits above Kingussie instead, seven minutes on foot from the station. Shops and a pub are under ten minutes' walk, and the larger supermarkets under a quarter of an hour by car.

The house was built in the 1820s and spent part of its life as an exhibition building for the Highland Folk Museum before falling derelict. The restoration finished in 2024, keeping the original windows and relaying the stone slate roof, and the inside was rebuilt as a holiday house with wool tartan curtains, velvet sofas, and walk in showers.

The ground floor holds a dining kitchen, a sitting room, a snug with the wood burning stove, a drying room, and a shower room, all over underfloor heating. Both bedrooms are upstairs with their own bathrooms and blackout curtains. Outside there is a fully enclosed garden with a sitooterie, and secure off road parking for four cars, which is not a small thing in a Highland village.

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

Kingussie sits at the western edge of the Cairngorms National Park, on the Badenoch side of the Spey, and the owners reckon a quarter of an hour on foot from the door gets you up into the Monadhliath. The river itself is close enough to swim in, kayak on, or walk beside, and there is fishing on the Spey and on Loch Gynack, along with golf in the village.

The Highland Folk Museum, which once owned this building, is the obvious first stop. The Highland Wildlife Park and Loch Insh are both within an easy run, Landmark suits a wet afternoon with children, and Cairngorm Mountain takes over in the ski season. The owners also point people at the steam train from Aviemore and the Moray coast beaches as a day out.