Glas-allt-Shiel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Glas-allt-Shiel |
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Glas-allt-Shiel seen from the edge of Loch Muick
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| Built | 1868 |
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Listed Building – Category B
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| Designated | 12 March 2010 |
| Reference no. | LB51457 |
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Glas-allt-Shiel is a lodge on the Balmoral Estate by the shore of Loch Muick in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In its present form it was built in 1868 by Queen Victoria, who called it Glassalt, to be what she called her "widow's house" where she could escape from the world following the death of her husband Albert. It is now a category B listed building owned personally by Charles III. Adam Watson considers that "Glas-allt-Shiel has undoubtedly one of the most spectacular situations of any lodge in the Highlands."
Contents
Estate history
From time immemorial, the land around Loch Muick had been owned by the Mormaer of Mar who later became the Celtic Earls of Mar. As vassals of the Crown the Bissetts became landlords in the 13th century, followed by the Fraser family. In 1351 Sir William Keith, Great Marischal of Scotland, took ownership, followed by the Earls of Huntly, and then Clan Farquharson of Invercauld. The silk mercer Sir James McKenzie purchased it as a sporting estate in 1863. This estate was formally incorporated into the Balmoral estate by George VI between 1947 and 1951. With the Scottish Wildlife Trust the area was established as a nature reserve in 1974, but remaining also as a sporting estate.
The original and rebuilt dwellings and their setting
Now within the Balmoral estate, Glas Allt is a stream running down from the 1,000-metre (3,300 ft) plateau of the White Mounth, near Lochnagar. Passing over the considerable Falls of Glas Allt, the burn runs into a point near the head of Loch Muick through a relatively flat delta amidst otherwise hilly and rocky land. Here a single-storey stalker's cottage was built in 1851 for Charles Duncan, employed as an estate gillie, and his wife. This cottage seems to have had a room for royal parties and it predates the lodge of 1868. Adam Watson considers that "Glas-allt-Shiel has undoubtedly one of the most spectacular situations of any lodge in the Highlands."
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Victoria and Albert's first visit to Balmoral was when they stayed there for the autumn of 1848. They visited the nearby hunting lodge called Allt-na-giubhsaich near the foot of Loch Muick and in August next year they stayed overnight at this lodge – in the meantime it had been extended and improved although Victoria still regarded it as our "little bothie". By the time they stayed at the lodge the following year John Brown had become one of the queen's attendants – he was one of a team of four servants who rowed her party to the head of the loch. On 30 August 1849 she wrote about the location "The scenery is beautiful here, so wild and grand – real severe Highland scenery, with trees in the hollow. We had various scrambles in and out of the boat and along the shore, and saw three hawks, and caught seventy trout. I wish an artist could have been there to sketch the scene; it was picturesque – the boat, the net, and the people in their kilts in the water, and on the shore."
As for the smaller and more primitive shiel, newly built for Duncan, Victoria had fallen in love with the cottage and its setting – at the time on the Abergeldie estate which was leased by Victoria and Albert. Around 1859 Victoria arranged for the Duncans to move to the foot of Glen Muick to live at Rhebreck leaving the shiel unoccupied. By 1868 the old two-room building had been demolished, to be replaced by the present fifteen-room dressed granite residence of twin gables and bow windows looking over Loch Muick. Between 1866 and 1869 stables and a keeper's cottage and offices were added to the rear and cellars were constructed. A slipway for boats was built about 1870, between twin jetties.
It is now a category B listed building owned personally by Charles III.
Background to Victoria's rebuilding of Glassalt
Queen Victoria, only twenty-one years old and newly married to Prince Albert, visited Scotland in 1842. Except for a brief visit by George IV in 1822 this was the first royal visit since the reign of Charles I. She sailed to Edinburgh and then visited Perth, Taymouth and Stirling. Both Victoria and Albert rather quickly came to love the country and the people living there. When she departed she wrote in her diary that it had been a holiday she would never forget.
Held back by the births of their children, they next visited in 1844 when they stayed at Blair Castle and then again in 1847 when they cruised along the Scottish west coast and spent three weeks at Ardverikie where the weather was exceptionally wet. The couple decided to buy a property in Scotland so they could visit regularly and, on account of Albert's rheumatism, were advised by the royal doctor, Sir James Clark, to consider Deeside where the climate is drier. Lord Aberdeen suggested Balmoral Castle, near Ballater where an unexpired lease was available. After only seeing sketches of the estate they agreed to take over the lease.
In September 1848 they travelled by sea to Aberdeen and when they arrived at Balmoral they immediately knew they had taken the right decision. Victoria wrote in her diary "All seemed to breath freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils". Victoria could visit the local tenants and crofters who she found were not overawed by royalty. Back in England the couple planned to purchase the estate and build a larger castle adjacent to the existing one. Albert, with deer stalking in mind, started negotiating to purchase the neighbouring estates of Abergeldie, to the east and Ballochbuie to the west. He was immediately successful in purchasing Birkhall up into the hills around Loch Muick and by 1849 was able to obtain a long-term lease on Abergeldie which has been continually renewed up to the present.
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It was only in 1852 that the purchase of Balmoral was agreed – 30,000 guineas for the 17,400 acres (equivalent to £3,000,000 in 2021 for 7,000 hectares) and the plans for the new castle could commence. In this Victoria was helped by a bequest of £250,000 from an eccentric barrister, John Camden Neild, who himself had been living in poverty. The purchase of the estate was made in Albert's name, however, to establish clearly that it was personal property and not that of the Crown.
Albert had been introduced to deer stalking at Taymouth back in 1840 when he was rather fortunate in successfully shooting a stag and he took up this new pastime finding that the area around Loch Muick on the estate was a good location. They had rebuilt the shooting lodge of Allt-na-giubhsaich at the foot of Loch Muick and, although Victoria did not go hunting, she liked visiting there to relax away from visiting dignitaries and to do painting.
Albert died of typhoid in 1861 and this was a bitter blow for Victoria. She visited Balmoral for solace but all the time she was reminded of Albert. She could escape the world at Allt-na-guibhsaich but could not bear living there because of its earlier happy associations. However, there was another lodge at the head of the loch, a smaller one, and she decided to get this extended to convert it into a "widow's house".
Bothy
Since 1991 an outhouse at the back of the lodge was maintained by Dundee University Rucksack Club as an open bothy until in 2019 it passed to the Mountain Bothies Association – it is a good base for climbing Lochnagar. Equipped with a stove and a composting toilet (as well as a candelabra) it used to be a storeroom. However, there is no electricity, the water supply is from the Glas Allt very near by, and there is no fuel unless it has been left by previous users. The bothy was available to anyone free of charge for overnight stays until 2020 when it was closed for an indefinite period on account of misuse.The bothy has subsequently been reopened and is now available as previously. Up until that time, when royal parties were visiting the lodge backpackers were still allowed to stay in the bothy but they were asked to keep discreetly out of the way.
See also
- Shieling
