THE LAST Victorian shooting lodge to be built in Scotland is up for sale.
Glenmarkie Lodge was built a year before the death of Victoria, whose love of the Highlands encouraged Britain’s rich and powerful to follow in her footsteps.
The 1900 property, near Blairgowrie, Perthshire, is built on the tip of a beautiful glen and comes with 163 acres of land.
The nine bedroomed property was built for the Cox family, who owned a jute works in Dundee, which was for a time the largest in the world.
The Camperdown Works, owned by the family, employed over 14,000 people in the late nineteenth century, and housed 200 power looms.
And the lodge, located at the gateway to the mangificent Cairngorms National Park would have provided a stunning getaway.
The price for the property is only available on application but it last sold 12 years ago.
General house price inflation suggests a figure in excess of £1.7m but it could be much more as Highland lodges with less than a fifth of the land have sold for £1.5m recently.
Fully and sympathetically restored between 1998 and 2005 to capture its Victorian design and origins, the property has four reception rooms and eight bathrooms.
Also included is an indoor 10m long heated swimming pool.
Stone gate piers lead into a courtyard at the back of the house and from the front stone steps lead up to wooden front doors, over which there is a date stone of 1900.
And the former gun room has now been converted into a store room with its own cupboard.
The drawing room has a bay window with a window seat, a fireplace with marble mantel and a partially glazed door to the garden at the front.
Whilst the library has fitted bookshelves and a corner wood burning stove with hood and a raised stone hearth.
The kitchen includes a porcelain sink, shelved cupboard, and door to the courtyard.
And an elegant wide wooden staircase has carved balustrades, hand rail and is lit by a large leaded window with art nouveau stained glass.
The Cox family’s decision to build Glenmarkie followed massive investment in Highland property during the reign of Victoria.
After choosing Balmoral Castle as a holiday home during her reign, Queen Victoria set the Scottish Highlands as a fashionable destination for the wealthy.
As a result Scotland became a desirable place for the aristocracy to engage in field sports.
The Cox’s Camperdown Works is now famous for its 282 foot high brick chimney, known as “Cox’s Stack”, which is Scotland’s tallest surviving industrial chimney.
Savills, who are selling the property, state: “Glenmarkie Lodge is a magnificent late Victorian shooting lodge.
” It was built for the Cox family, who had a successful jute business in Dundee, and is reputed to be the last Victorian shooting lodge built in Scotland.
“The majority of the land at Glenmarkie is directly in front of the lodge. There are two paddocks. Below these is the original panelled turbine house, which overlooks the Finlet Burn and the lochan.”
