Sustainability

Here at Attadale we are stewards of an exceptional and vibrant place. The nature of our business is cultivating and caring for the natural world and sharing this place with our visitors and the community. We are a small enterprise, but we firmly believe it is important for us to improve our efforts towards sustainability, and we appreciate that it is very necessary.

Attadale Holiday Cottages

We have dedicated our efforts in the last few years to upgrading and improving our holiday cottages to ensure that everything we do, and provide, is as sustainable and ecologically sound as possible. From developing a welcome pack for our guests that showcases local producers and provides only eco-friendly complimentary hygiene products, to replacing all windows with double-glazed ones and new front doors and even installing a whole new smart heating system.  We have invested effort in achieving our sustainability goals. We are still working towards further improvements but are pleased with how we have progressed.

Due to the environment in which our cottages are found, we believe that our customers do care about sustainability and the natural world. Our guests choose to spend time with nature and enjoy this beautiful place, and we wish to ensure they are given the opportunity to be responsible visitors helping us protect the future of Attadale and the community it is a part of. We also seek suggestions and feedback from our visitors to help us improve our customer experience and our green policies in particular, we are always open to new ideas.

The Gardens 

Attadale Gardens has a rich history, with the main house and some planting dating back to the 18^th century. Every effort is made to care for the house and gardens with appreciation of its history. Our history pages can tell you more and include some lovely pictures. Our small but dedicated garden team care for and enhance the 20 acres of ornamental garden with the utmost care for the local ecosystem and wider ecological responsibilities. The use of chemicals is avoided wherever possible, replaced with natural methods. They produce cut flowers as well as a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in the kitchen garden, which we can share with our holiday guests and use when catering for events at Attadale. We are proud of the water gardens that were created, working in the aftermath of a terrible storm which left large holes from fallen trees. It boasts a collection of ponds and small waterways which are maintained in a wildlife friendly fashion for the benefit of a host of amphibians and insects. Much joy is brought to visitors young and old discovering pond life, especially the local schools who visit regularly throughout the year. The garden is managed with wild flora and fauna in mind, with areas of no cut grass, flowers for pollinators, as well as dead hedges to create habitat. Our whole team is encouraged to make suggestions and champion projects, that work towards our sustainable goals.

The Café  

We lease our little café to a local family who share our green ethos.  We support them in providing composting facilities and minimising single-use items. They offer reusable cutlery & crockery which has seen a real increase in use over last season, there are also compostable/recyclable items available for those more on the go.  Visitors can enjoy a lunch of homemade sandwiches, soup, cake & ice cream in this sweet DIY honesty café. Customers report enjoying the do-it-yourself approach very much as it is not seen very often. The café also offers the opportunity to learn about the history of the house and gardens with colourful wall displays and lots of literature to enjoy. While you visit for lunch, you can help us by completing a green feedback form and depositing it in the suggestion box. We value customer opinion and welcome suggestions of ways we can do more to be green.

The Estate 

The 30,000 acres of Attadale estate is managed with sustainability in mind. We are delighted to have received a silver award from Wildlife Estates Scotland which is a testament to the hard work our land management team put into green initiatives. As well as fencing some areas for natural regeneration and planting mixed broad leaf forestry, we are part of Lochalsh Deer Management group. The group sees neighbouring estates working together to control deer density, striving to keep numbers at a level that allows for habitat regeneration, which in turn sees that there is ample grazing to maintain a healthy population. We have an estate-to-plate model at Attadale meaning that we process the venison we shoot, right here on the estate and sell it directly to our customers. We sell retail on site in the gatehouse and wholesale to the local hospitality industry. We are passionate about promoting venison as we believe it is an underappreciated resource. It has so many benefits as a local, healthy, high welfare meat product that can be produced with very few food miles attached. We are happy to report that we have had increasing success since 2020 supplying venison to our local community to the point where it can be hard to keep up with demand! We are very proud to support Bob Kindness who has spent the last 30 years working tirelessly on a salmon regeneration programme on Attadale estate and on the River Carron. His success was recently recognised by Scottish Land and Estates, when he received the “Helping it Happen” award. There are four small hydroelectric schemes on the estate, which in our rain prone climate are generating well and mitigating carbon production. We regularly host classes from the local senior school, taking them to visit and learn about the Hydro schemes.

Attadale in the Community

At Attadale we are proud to see ourselves as a part of the local community. We take every opportunity to support those who, like ourselves and our whole team, call this area home. Taking part in local events and festivals, supporting the schools, sports teams and community projects however we can, is something we see as an important part of our stewardship here. We love and respect this place and want to see it thrive.

The Lochcarron Highland Games is hosted here every summer and is a wonderful gathering of community which also brings visitors from far afield, for an action-packed day of traditional

events and social activity. It is not to be missed if you find yourself in the area.