As the ferry speeds across the Sound of Mull, a crystal-clear Scottish morning reveals a turreted castle nestled in the foothills of the green mountainside. On the eastern edge of the Isle of Mull, off the coast of the Western Highlands, Torosay Castle stands in serene isolation in 11,000 acres of rolling fields and rocky shorelines. Its only companion for miles around is Duart Castle, a 14th-century fortress that stands in stark contrast to its stately neighbour.
Torosay Castle was not designed to withstand warring clans or invading Englishmen. It was built in 1858 to host the most lavish parties in Victorian Scotland, and counts Winston Churchill and Nellie Melba among its distinguished guests.
Tiled turrets stand where the battlements should be. Instead of gatehouses and drawbridges there are dovecotes built into the garden walls. Italianate statues line the immaculate lawns, which blend into the hillside and run down to the beach and the boathouse, gazing back across to the mainland.
The front door of the castle faces away from the sea and back up the hill, covered by the fields and clustered woodland of the Torosay estate. As you crunch over the gravel of the driveway, you approach what looks more like a stately home than a Celtic castle and enter an atrium lined with the antlers of deer that once roamed the hillsides.
Torosay Castle has been in the same family for five generations and was inherited in the 1980s by Chris James and his family, who open their doors to the public in the summer months. While visitors traipse through the rooms downstairs, Mr James lives with his wife, Sarah, and three young children in apartments that circle the upper level, decorated with a modern but sympathetic eye. The lower floor, meanwhile, bears all the hallmarks of a Victorian manor, with a mahogany-lined sitting room, regal fireplace and airy drawing room with large bay windows that open on to the garden. The library is small and cosy, and was once described by Daphne du Maurier’s sister, Angela, as her favourite place in all the world.
The house is lined with the portraits of Mr James’s forebears, who peer down from the walls as he takes guests on personalised tours of his home. In the wing is a small gallery, curated by the family and run as a museum to the achievements of their intrepid ancestors who explored the Antarctic and sailed round the globe.
The history of the house is hidden in every nook and cranny, somenewspaper literally. In the dining room, in a locked compartment in an old sideboard, Mr James found a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne from 1893 that had lain undiscovered for more than a century and was described by its makers as priceless.
Though its 11 bedrooms and grounds would suggest a majesty and opulence to Torosay Castle, it maintains a certain modesty that belies its grandeur. You may lose yourself in the building’s romance, but you are less likely to become lost in the corridors or hallways — the scale is not daunting and the rooms not cavernous.
Indeed, it is Mr James’s wish that the castle be converted back into a single family home when he sells it. The property, which is for sale through Savills (0131-247 3700), seems set to fetch at least £2.8 million. “I think it would be very nice if the house reverted to being a family home,” he says, “so that upstairs was simply bedrooms and the family could use the principle rooms as they were intended — possibly reinstate the billiard room, or whatever else they might like to do to recreate the atmosphere of the old house.
“The house deserves not to have the wear and tear of hundreds of members of the public coming through. It deserves the chance to take a breath.”
Of the castle’s 11,000 acres, more than 10,000 will be sold separately, leaving 865 acres of land around the house. The land includes two holiday cottages, with one and two bedrooms respectively, and a three-bedroom bungalow, which has been used to house guests and the staff that maintain the estate.
Within the category A-listed castle, there are four reception rooms and eight bedrooms, with a one-bedroom staff apartment and a two-bedroom flat in the kitchen wing.
“If you own a house like this, it’s amazing what friends turn up wanting to be entertained,” says Mr James, with a knowing smile. “It has hosted funerals, weddings, family parties and even served as a green room for a Celtic music festival. We have never known it not to rise to the occasion.”
Though prices in the prime sector in Scotland, as across much of the country, have been hit by falls of up to 20 per cent, properties such as Torosay Castle are being sold as a lifestyle purchase, which adds a premium and protects them from the harshest ravages of the downturn.
With a private jetty for boats and 12 acres of pristine lawns for garden parties, the castle could serve equally well as an exclusive hideway or a family home. Keen botanists can nurture the copse of Chilean woodland planted on the hillside, while amateur farmers can run the estate’s beef and sheep farming business.
The current owners plan to head for the mainland, leaving behind their quiet island. The 340 square miles of the Isle of Mull are home to a population of only 2,667, centred around the little capital of Tobermory.
As the ferry slips away from the jetty and heads back towards to the port of Oban on the mainland, Torosay Castle seems to nestle back down into the hillside, standing proudly in its tranquil surroundings as the first bastion of the Inner Hebrides.