Inverie House, Knoydart Estate

Inverie House is a large mansion with two distinct phases of construction centred around an inner courtyard. The rear section dates from the later 18th century and is a two-storey, U-shaped block. A further two-storey, U-shaped range was added in the later 19th century, creating a prominent asymmetrical five-bay south elevation, featuring a central doorway and a bowed bay window rising the full height of the facade on the southeast side. The earlier portion of the house is constructed of whitewashed rubble, while the later range is white harled with contrasting painted tooled ashlar margins. The later 19th-century frontage contains a central door flanked by long side lights. There are asymmetrical, three-bay return gables to the west and a five-bay return gable to the east, both featuring three piended dormer windows breaking the eaves. Side wings and return gabled sections connect to the rear block, which has small first-floor windows close under the eaves and irregular fenestration to its north elevation, including two long multi-pane windows that now illuminate the kitchen, likely the site of an earlier principal hall. A lower, single-storey wing extends westwards from the earlier house.

The building features varied glazing patterns, end, ridge and wallhead stacks, and piended slate roofs. The interior of the older rear portion is now used as service quarters. The kitchen is tall, possibly occupying the site of a former cruck-framed hall. The later 19th-century section includes a pine-panelled entrance hall, an oak staircase with a decorative oak balustrade, and simple moulded ceiling cornices, as well as some later 19th-century chimney arrangements.

Historically, Knoydart was the property of the Macdonell of Invergarry until approximately 1853. Accounts suggest that many crofts were “cleared” as a condition of the sale. A description from 1836 refers to a "creel house", the former mansion, as a two-roomed dwelling with wattled walls and a potentially turfed exterior, supported by crucks “meeting in massive arches overhead.” It was considered a structure “in excellent keeping with the tartans which grace its hospitable…inmates.”