Aberlour Bolthole - 5 guests, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, open-plan kitchen-dining-living

This page: pictures - amenities - directions

Aberlour Bolthole was once home to the Ferryman working on the River Spey just 50 yards behind the cottage, flowing beside the beautiful Alice Littler Park.

The cottage was comprehensively refurbished in 2012 and now is a classic Highland village home with a modern bathroom, kitchen and gas central heating system as well as a cosy wood burner.

Accomodation:

• Master bedroom with 1 king size bed
• Family room with 2 double beds
• Family bathroom upstairs with full sized bath and over head shower (with great water pressure)
• Open plan kitchen-dining-living room

Amenities include:

• Heating: gas central heating (included) and a wood burner (logs can be bought at the filling station and iron mongers in the village)
• Kitchen: electric oven with ceramic hob, microwave, fridge, dishwasher (dishwasher tablets inlcuded), toaster, kettle, coffee machine, good selection of cookware and crockery, basic seasoning like salt, pepper, oil, vinegar provided as well as tea bags, instant coffee and sugar, cleaning products provided
• Living Room: TV with Freeview, free Wi-Fi, book swap
• Utilities: washing machine (washing powder provided), freezer, ironing board, iron, cleaning utensils
• Bedrooms: bed linen and towels are included
• Bathroom: full sized bath and overhead shower with great water pressure (soap and shampoo provided), basin and WC
• Complementary welcome pack
• Well-behaved dogs welcome on arrangement - please keep on hard flooring downstairs
• Sorry, no smoking
•  

To get to the cottage you drive on the A95 (High Street) through Aberlour until you see the Aberlour Filling Station (and Café 'Fresh' beside it). If possible, you park on the opposite side of the road from the Café. You should see a black metal garden gate and from there you should see Aberlour Cottage set back behind gardens to the right hand side looking much like in the picture on this website. You go through the gate, down the steps and follow the long garden path to the front door on the right-hand side.

Before the iron footbridge spanned the torrent, the ferryman's skiff was the only crossing. His final passenger, on the night the Spey rose to claim its banks, was James Fleming—banker, philanthropist, and founder of the Aberlour distillery.

What was pledged for that desperate passage, no one ever learned. The ferryman delivered Fleming to the other side, alive but forever silent about the mid-current darkness. The ferryman himself vanished by dawn.

It is said Fleming’s fierce will to build the bridge was not merely philanthropy, but a seal against what the river had shown him. The toll of one penny was to pay a lingering debt. Some still claim the oldest cask in the distillery’s deepest vault holds not just whisky, but the deep, dark secret of what the Spey took that night.