We have done our best to ensure that the facilities on the estate mirror those of much bigger, much more expensive properties. Nature has done its best to help. The views in all directions are stunning. With the stream running through it, big and small waterfalls, the Lochan, 17,000 trees to climb, quiet terraces by the pools in the river, wee fairy glades in the woods - to use the words of an early guest, "Ormidale is a heavenly haven for adults, kids and dogs."
But we have added as we can, and we are assured that that we are close to as well equipped an estate for holiday makers as you will find in Scotland - Indoor Heated Swimming Pool, individual hot tubs and saunas for each house, a Football Pitch, Tennis Court, Games Cottage with Pool Table, Ping Pong Table and Darts, Sunken Trampoline, and thousands of acres of forest to explore. The pool, football pitch, tennis court, and games cottage are all good fun to muck about in or on. They aren’t five star level versions of themselves but our guests enjoy them.
We provide a dozen bikes of various sizes, and have twelve bags of golf clubs. Croquet sets, tennis rackets, badminton kit all available. There’s full sky TV of course and dozens of DVDs. A library of books in each house. Twenty board games. We keep some Murder Mystery Games as well if you want to borrow one of those. Our scruffy little games cottage features table tennis and darts on one floor and a pool table on the other, and there’s an all-weather outdoor table tennis table outside as well. The swimming pool is 5m x 5.5m, bigger than most people expect – it is heated to 27 degrees or 28 degrees, which is slightly warner than a competition pool. Or than the Mediterranean! But it is not a “spa” pool temperature, so some smaller children will find it cooler than they are used to. Each house gets at least 2 and a half hours per day timetabled usage, split into a morning and an afternoon session. We don’t have a formal split on times on the tennis court or games cottage, but we ask people to share nicely – in practise it works pretty well. We have plans to resurface the tennis court in 2021; in the meantime it provides a fair game because the bad bounces even out, but it ain’t Roland Garros or Wimbledon. There are better courts available for real afficionados of tennis, down the road at Tighnabruaich.
Guest have full use of our own 22 acres to explore and relax in. We are also very lucky that there is no boundary between our grounds and the thousands of acres of forestry commission land behind us. So you can roam in the gloaming, or at dawn, direct from the house, to your heart's desire.
The gardens themselves are considered pretty impressive by people who know about these things. At the same time as the Scottish architect Robert Lorimer started on the house at the end of the nineteenth century, the gardens and grounds were laid out and landscaped by Thomas Mawson of Kendal, a major figure in Victorian Landscape gardening. Set amidst the acres of woodland, and enjoying lovely views across the glen and up the mountain, the formal gardens he designed are mainly laid to lawn and terrace with hydrangeas, rhodedendron and azalea, as well as reputedly the tallest Grecian fir in Scotland.
Our own woods feature numerous tree species and adjoin thousands of acres of forestry commission land through which guests are welcome to wander. One of our terraces features a Grade A listed sundial. We have amazing bird life on the estate as well as red squirrels and deer.
The night skies at Ormidale are absolutely spectacular. There is no light pollution to speak of, and the star gazing is consequently quite extraordinary. Harder in high summer of course when it doesn’t really get all that dark, but for 9 or 10 months of the year, a clear night will give you an absolute treat.
A tributary of the river Ruel runs through the gardens, down from the Lochan that supplies Ormidale's private water supply. There is a lovely waterfall walk within the garden, and a rope-assisted climb down to a pool for outdoor bathing. The walk up to the Lochen itself is a wee climb, but really worth it. It's a fabulous location for kids.
Each of the three houses has its own private terrace and enjoys the use of a private bit of lawned garden, with the tennis court, football pitch, woods, river, and front field all shared. The main house has the biggest lawn, and the Mill house has a lovely garden dropping down to the river. The Old Barn has a less generous private lawned area by comparison but still has space for adults to sit out and enjoy sunshine and for children to play.
We have been in debate with the council health and safety department over the construction of large wooden outdoor children's play areas. We want to build a big fun adventure playground, to be used sensibly by children of an appropriate age and with parental consent and supervision. We'd also like to build a smaller scale space for smaller children. Neither scheme has yet been approved. We need to find a way through the health and safety legislation and reach some sort of sensible conclusion.
In the mean-time we just expect you to make do with the thousands of trees to climb. |
