Saturday 7 October 2023

REMEMBERING 10 Years ago: Bruce Weber - "A Highland Friendship" ft. Stella Tennant with Lady Isabella Cawdor & her family


From city lights to country life

 

Rhiannon Batten meets the former fashion editor who found herself in the wilderness of Nairn and set about filling the gap for holiday cottages in a region stiff with B&Bs and grand hotels but nothing in between

 

Saturday 31 January 2004 01:00

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/from-city-lights-to-country-life-76330.html

 

One of Europe's last great wildernesses is not, perhaps, the obvious habitat for a couture-clad It-girl, but Isabella Cawdor insists she's much happier living in a forested valley overlooking the river Findhorn in Scotland than she was on the London party scene. "I never dreamt about living in the middle of nowhere the way some people do," says the 37-year-old former fashion stylist. "I'd dreamt about falling in love and having children, but ending up here was a complete accident."

 

Born Lady Isabella Stanhope - the younger daughter of the Earl of Harrington - and brought up in Limerick, Isabella was working as a fashion editor for Vogue when she was introduced to Colin Campbell, now the seventh Earl Cawdor. At the time Colin Campbell was working as an architect in New York so, for a year, the couple conducted a transatlantic love affair. But the early death of his father prompted Colin's sudden return to Cawdor Castle and the 60,000-acre, 14th-century family estate in Nairn - and the end of Isabella's metropolitan way of life.

 

The couple married and, for a while, Isabella continued in fashion, mapping out freelance projects for the likes of Bruce Weber, Mario Testino and Annie Leibowitz from the wilds of Cawdor. But after having three children in quick succession - Jean, now six, James, five, and Eleanor, almost four - she decided to put her sense of style to use closer to home, developing some of the cottages on the estate into rental properties.

 

"When I first visited Cawdor I thought it was the most amazing place I'd ever seen - except possibly for Patagonia and Montana," she enthuses. "I'd travelled all over the world with my job but I'd rarely been anywhere as breathtakingly beautiful. Everyone knows about the west coast of Scotland, but the thing about Nairn [on the mid north-east coast] is that it has this vast, open sky. In Britain you're not used to that." When Shakespeare put Cawdor on the literary map in Macbeth, the King describes Cawdor on arriving, saying: "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air/ Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/ Unto our gentle senses." There was one blip on this good-looking horizon, however - there was hardly anywhere to stay. "There were B&Bs and grand old hotels but there was nowhere in the middle," explains Isabella. "There are so many people today travelling all over the place, and on the phone the whole time. What they want when they take time off is to go somewhere peaceful and beautiful but also comfortable."

 

So, she set about filling the gap. "I didn't do any research in the UK. I just took my inspiration from the travelling I'd done with work," Isabella admits. "As a fashion editor I'd been everywhere from Tokyo to Ethiopia, and I'd been really spoilt, but I think there's a fine balance between super deluxe and real comfort. Feeling comfortable isn't necessarily to do with staying in five-star places with fitted carpets and air conditioning. At Cawdor I wanted it to be more about peace and quiet, proper food and just enjoying this vast landscape."

 

The resulting seven cottages have been a blast of fresh air through the traditional British self-catering scene. There are no packets of stale shortbread masquerading as hospitality or bottom-bruising sofas slowly capsizing in the sitting rooms. Instead it's all old-fashioned comfort dressed up in chic new packaging. Towels are fluffy and white, walls are simple, clotted cream, the kitchen has everything you need (cafetières and stainless-steel pans) and nothing you don't (melted plastic spatulas or garish crockery) and the floors are either sleek, polished wood or cosy coir matting. More original still, you can also "order in" shiatsu treatments. "You have to be disciplined when you're designing a holiday cottage, though," warns Isabella. "You can't make things 100 per cent your own, full-on, style. You need it to be a bit more neutral so that it fits in with what more people want."

 

Not that it's all bland minimalism. Her own full-on style, it turns out, is "like a gypsy caravan" and there's an appealing hint of that in the cottages, with original stained-glass windows in one cottage porch, warm velvet drapes in another and painted farm chairs in most of the kitchens. If that still sounds a little restrained, there is always Drynachan Lodge - Cawdor's largest rental property - an established house that comes complete with antlers locked to the wall, blazing log fires, staff on hand to do the cooking and space for 20 guests.

 

For someone whose career began in the fashion industry Isabella is, surprisingly, as strong on function as she is on form. "It's no good just looking pretty," she chirps. "No one wants to rent somewhere with a rickety old bed that they can't actually sleep in. And the hot water has to flow fast and furiously." Cooking is another passion. "I've always been a glutton for delicious food and the wild-food side of where we live really excites me," she says.

 

Anyone who comes to stay gets a list of local suppliers, and tips, for instance, on who's the best butcher in town.

 

She will even shop for you so that you have supplies there when you arrive. "Some people want to have it all laid on," she says. "They don't want to pitch up and fight through the jungle. They want to know that they've got plenty of food, that the shiatsu treatments are booked and that they're scheduled in for riding the next day."

 

If Isabella sounds unusually sympathetic to the needs of frazzled guests she is speaking from experience. Besides looking after the cottages, and three young children, she also runs a location and production company, organising photo shoots for magazines and props and casting facilities for films. Thanks to her, the Beckhams managed an unperturbed introduction to the Highlands a few years ago when they stayed in Drynachan Lodge to be photographed for the cover of Vanity Fair (the scenery stole almost as much attention as they did).

 

Isabella is relaxed about the competition. "Several people have asked if they can look around the cottages as they want to do something similar. I always say: 'Yeah, sure'. I don't think it's good to guard things," she shrugs.

 

Apart from old habits. Proving she hasn't quite left the fashion world behind she says, "look at the Hermès Birkin bag. That's been ripped off everywhere on the high street but it hasn't made the real thing any less valuable."






https://www.cawdor.com/


The woman who put the Highlands in Vogue

 

Isabella Cawdor never has to visit a supermarket - she can live off the land on her Scottish estate

 

Interview by Nicola Jeal

Sun 13 Apr 2003 16.33 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/apr/13/foodanddrink.features11

 

'If I'm popping down to London,' says Isabella Cawdor, 'I'll ring Rose (Gray, co-owner of the River Cafe) to see if she needs any mushrooms, or maybe a couple of wild salmon for the restaurant. If it's the season, I might take her 20 brace of grouse.'

 

Ten years ago, the only interest Isabella had in food was eating it, and then only in fashionable restaurants like the River Cafe. As a stylist for Vogue and Elle magazines, when she 'popped' over to Paris, New York, Mexico or the Caribbean, her cargo was wearable, never edible: suitcases were packed with designer clothes ready to be worn by top models like Kate Moss, Stella Tennant or Helena Christensen.

 

Today, Isabella, 36, wife of Colin, the seventh Earl of Cawdor and twenty-fifth Thane of Cawdor, and mother of three, is a woman with a mission. She wants to promote the local produce of the Scottish Highlands, much of which can be found on, or around, Cawdor estate, near Inverness, where she now lives.

 

It was seven years ago, following the death of Colin's father, that she moved here from London so her architect husband could take over the running of the family's 60,000-acre estate. 'It was a shock for me when we first arrived. I didn't have a clue. The place seemed so wild. Now I love the extremes. One day I will be in London having meetings with photographers like Mario Testino [who pay to use Cawdor as a fashion shoot location] and the rest of the week I will be up here,' she says, looking at the view from her home, which almost straddles the River Findhorn.

 

Her nearest neighbours are a couple of hills, one river, a loch, and a few miles away. 'What I can't stand is country "lite". I would hate to live in chintzy Wiltshire. I love the extreme wilderness.' The ex-Voguette, however, hasn't exactly swapped her Manolo Blahniks for Wellington boots - a pair of zebra-print stilettoes with mud on the heels sit by the kitchen door, and this is a woman who pulls on suede chaps, a purple velvet coat and a fur hat to go riding - but she is passionate about her new life.

 

Now she can talk for hours about the 'joys of foraging' for cep and chanterelle mushrooms, wild sorrel, elderflower for cordial, samphire, and juniper berries to burn as incense, or 'the importance of sourcing' for produce, like hot-smoked salmon and peat-smoked sea trout from the smokehouse on the Isle of North Uist (01876 580209).

 

Colin's stepmother currently lives in the fourteenth-century Cawdor castle, where he lived as a child and which he still regards as home, despite a family feud about who should reside there. For now, the Campbell clan - including Jean, five, James, four, and Eleanor, three - call nearby Carnoch home. It is two mid-nineteenth century stone houses joined together by a brilliantly designed modern extension, which forms a courtyard that overlooks the river, making it the perfect sun-trap for outdoor eating.

 

After the couple finished Carnoch, they set about renovating six derelict workers' cottages belonging to the vast Cawdor estate. Each stands in glorious isolation: one near the loch (where you can fish for brown trout, and cook it for supper), another in the woods looking towards the Moray Firth, a larger one in the river valley shadowed by the Monadhliath mountains, and so on. They now accommodate an urban crowd, on weekend breaks or a week's holiday. This is the business that Isabella runs, and you know, even before you enter, that each rental cottage will look just as if it could have jumped off the pages of Elle Deco.

 

'I did look out of the window when we first moved up here and thought, "Oh my God, I'm 28, I 'm used to a busy life, flying here and there". I got into a neurotic spin. I had no children then, and I knew I had to work.' It all began with Drynachan, the estate's old shooting lodge. The couple renovated the property, installed a young South African chef, and began attracting a non-shooting set. So, along with the shooting parties, there are now celebrity get-togethers and photoshoots - including one for Vanity Fair magazine featuring the Beckhams - and cookery courses, hosted by the likes of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Rose Gray.

 

'It was hearing Hugh and Rose's enthusiasm for the local produce that really gave me the food bug. They both made me realise how lucky I was to live here. And Scotland has really changed in the past couple of years.

 

'When we arrived it was difficult to buy seafood. It was ridiculous. All the best stuff went straight to France. Now we can get good seafood from Celtic Seafare (0134 986 4087, who supply the River Cafe with scallops); or sweet-milk cheese and a semi-soft carola rind washed in Glen Moray whisky direct from the local Wester Lawrenceton farm (01309 676 566) which has an organic cheese-making unit using milk from its small herd of Ayrshire cows. The children watch it being made.'

 

But Isabella's favourite shopping spot - apart from Manolo Blahnik in London - is Kirsty's farm, just down the road and purveyor of 'the best bacon in the world'. Kirsty McPherson is one of the last locals to farm the land around Cawdor, her part of which is dotted with brightly coloured, clapped-out tractors, as well as chickens, geese and dogs running wild. Kirsty inherited the farm 20 years ago when she was 21. Her pride and joy are her 20 pigs. 'We're not like a commercial farm where pigs live a few months,' explains Kirsty. 'Mine are a year old now. When we feel we need to sell one, we ask around. For example, I know Isabella will have one for the spit at the lodge during the season.'

 

By now, the children are running after the pigs. Lady Jean Cawdor, aged five, is trying to wear a bloody deer's head, that she has found on the ground, as a mask. 'I never thought my life would be like this, but I can't imagine living in London with the children,' says Isabella. 'They are just too wild now.'

 

· Cawdor cottages, sleep between two and 10 and cost from £230 for three nights. Drynachan Lodge sleeps 18 and costs £5,600 for seven nights, fully catered, including three staff. Inquiries: 01667 402 402


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