Our Community Woodland Story
Discover the background to our cabins: a community-led project to restore our native forest and create a sustainable, off-grid retreat.
Your stay makes a difference
Glengarry Forest Cabins is not a standard holiday business. We are a 100% community-owned social enterprise. All the profits generated by your stay go directly back to the Glengarry Community Development Trust.
By staying here you are directly supporting us. Creating this sustainable income means our Trust isn't solely reliant on external funders or wind farm grants. It gives us the independence to pursue our core aims, which include environmental protection, advancing community development, and supporting the needs of our rural Highland community.
Restoring the Woodland
Our cabins sit within a PAWS (Plantation on Ancient Woodland Site). This means the land has been continuously wooded since at least 1750, but was cleared and replanted with commercial conifers during the 20th century. Our plantation trees include Douglas fir, Scots pine, Norway spruce, Western hemlock, and Japanese larch.
The ancient woodland ecology, including the soil, seed bank, and ground flora, was never completely lost. Bluebells are a classic indicator of ancient woodland, and their bulbs can survive dormant in the soil for years, just waiting for the right conditions. As trees mature, blow over in storms, or are gradually thinned, light returns to the ground and the bulbs respond. In our woodland around the cabins, there are pockets of bluebells appearing. How wonderful to think of them being there all this time and that they are gradually waking up.
The Trust (originally formed as Glengarry Community Woodlands) has owned the forest since December 2015. We use low-impact methods to extract timber, which protects the forest floor and aids regeneration, which is a gradual and slow proccess.
Natural regeneration is happening here! Look around and you will see native broadleaves such as sessile oak, silver birch, rowan, hazel, and holly finding a foothold.
Around the cabin clearing, pioneer species like rowan and birch are establishing themselves and there are lots of saplings popping up. If you spot a bluebell through the trees, remember its story is ancient.
Building Glengarry Forest Cabins
Building off-grid cabins in the middle of a Highland woodland is a big task. We launched a successful community share bid, secured planning permission and broke ground by clearing the track up to the cabin site. Sandy MacRae Contracting of Fort Augustus and BlueGreen Conservation have both played key roles in engineering and tree management throughout the build. BG Conservation, who specialise in low impact forestry, helped us select trees from the site suitable for our build. We have high-quality Japanese larch here, which we milled on-site. The trees that grew here are now the timber cladding on the outside of every cabin and Am Fasgadh.
For the cabins themselves, we are grateful for the expertise and skills of North Woods Design. They are a family-owned timber building company based in Ullapool, and are very much in demand. Fortunately for us, they were keen to work on our community build, and we appreciate their support throughout. They designed and constructed the beautiful, highly insulated, sustainable cabin structures, complete with windows, doors and interior bespoke finishes.
Each cabin was delivered to our site in two halves, and winched into place. From there, our own local community team took over, adding the exterior larch cladding and interior details and fittings.
Am Fasgadh, the amenity building, was different. It has been completely built by our local team. The building was designed by Rob Borusso, who designed it so it could be constructed by community groups like ourselves. Rob has visited, worked with and upskilled the team throughout the build. It was a journey in itself to complete, but the skills gained locally were valuable. The building reflects the team's commitment to the project. You will see their hard work and attention to detail everywhere. The shower floors, for example, were made by slicing and setting boulders from the ground around the site into concrete.
Am Fasgadh benefits from underfloor heating and hot water which is completely powered by offcuts from our sawmill alongside solar power. Guests are asked to show consideration so there is hot water for all, but we hope everyone will enjoy this small sustainable loop that the building offers.
Who is behind the cabins project?
The cabins are the result of years of hard work, vision, and local investment. They are owned by the Glengarry Community Benefit Society, which was established in 2021 specifically to bring this eco-tourism project to life. All profits from the Cabins business go to Glengarry Community Development Trust. (GCDT)
To fund the build, the Society launched a community share offer, allowing local people and passionate supporters to invest their own money directly into the project.
Today, the cabins are operated on a daily basis by GCDT, managing the woodland and welcoming guests from all over the world to share in our corner of the Highlands.