A HISTORIC house in a remote glen has been saved by a lottery windfall that will help it become a vital tourist attraction.
Glencanisp Lodge was built in 1835 by the Duke of Sutherland but is now one of the main assets of community land owners.
The Assynt Foundation bought the 44,000-acre Glencanisp and Drumrunie estates in Sutherland and Wester Ross from the Vestey fa
mily for £2.9 million in 2005.
The foundation will today receive a grant of £784,997 from the Big Lottery's growing community assets scheme to safeguard the lodge's future for at least 50 years.
With water coming in through skylights and damp in the dining room rafters, the building was in danger of falling into disrepair.
It will now be upgraded for a range of purposes, including self-catering lets, residential training courses, corporate functions and community events. The project is expected to benefit 1,000 people living in the area and to attract about 25,000 visitors who will stay in the lodge. In the short term 12 jobs will be safeguarded with a potential to create more for the community.
The building, which is reached by a single track road from Lochinver, has ten bedrooms and can be rented for £2,000-£2,300 a week.
Claire Belshaw, who chairs the foundation, said: "This grant will enable us to make Glencanisp Lodge a home for the 21st century for everyone to enjoy – visitors and local people alike.
"The upgraded lodge will generate an important income for the foundation while securing the building for use and enjoyment for generations by everyone. It will allow us to involve more people in the work of the foundation and the income will enable long-term employment for local people."
She added: "There can be few better uses of lottery money than to restore and protect an iconic building while helping to provide the means for community regeneration, and creating a facility to be enjoyed by a great many."
The grant is one of six lottery awards announced today, totalling over £1.7 million, for projects in Sutherland, Caithness, Fife and South Lanarkshire.
Next door to the foundation land, at the Little Assynt Estate, the Culag Community Woodland Trust has been awarded £227,666 to build a 1.5 mile path to improve access to the Site of Special Scientific Interest at Loch Beannach. It will create a network of paths at Little Assynt including the all-abilities path already in place.
Mark Snowdon, the trust chairman, said: "Our intention is to use the path to motivate interest in biodiversity and enhance appreciation of the area with features such as wildlife observation hides. There are important pre- and post-Clearance sites and we'll provide access and interpretation for those as well."
A grant of £200,000 will also kick start the Pulteneytown People's Project after two years on the drawing board.
The money means PPP will be able to progress their vision for a community regeneration centre capable of housing after school clubs, youth projects, a learning centre and other services to help social and economic regeneration in the area.
Other grants made today include £45,500 to Milton and Coaltown of Balgonie Community Council in Fife to create a wildlife area from a former landfill site; £275,598 to the Rural Development Trust in South Lanarkshire to buy three minibuses and develop its Camglen community transport initiative into urban areas and £205,000 to the Blantyre Miners' Welfare Charitable Society in South Lanarkshire for a community resource centre.
