Highland Retreats

Featuring breathtaking photographs of some of Scotland’s most remarkable and little-known houses, this book tells the story of how incomers adopted the North of Scotland as a recreational paradise and left an astonishing legacy of architecture and decoration inspired by the romanticized image of the Highlands.  Known as shooting lodges because they were designed principally to accommodate the parties of guests that flocked north for the annual sporting season, these houses range from Picturesque cottages ornées and Scotch Baronial castles to Arts and Crafts mansions and modern eco-lodges. While their designs respond to some of Britain’s wildest and most stirring landscapes, inside many were equipped with the latest domestic technology and boasted opulent decoration and furnishings from the smartest London and Parisian firms.  A good number survive little altered in their original state, and some are still owned by descendants of the families that built them.

Images from the famous Country Life Picture Library and specially commissioned photographs evoke the dramatic settings and arresting detail of these houses, making the book as appealing to decorators and architectural historians as it is to travelers and sportsmen.Mary Miers commutes between her home in the Scottish Highlands and England, where she works as the Fine Arts and Books Editor for Country Life magazine. Her books include: 'The English Country House’ (Rizzoli); 'Highlands and Islands; an anthology of poetry of place’ (Eland); and 'The Western Seaboard; an illustrated architectural guide’ (Rutland Press). 

The late Paul Barker was one of England’s premier interior and architectural photographers, whose books included English Country House Interiors, The Drawing Room, and English Ruins.