On the South-eastern shore of Loch Ness…

…near a place called Foyers, stands a house of special importance to a lot of people (including myself). It was built over 200 years ago as a hunting lodge by the Fraser family (their family graveyard is on the opposite side of the road). In the 20th Century, it had two famous (or should that be infamous?) owners – the occultist Aleister Crowley and the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page (neither of whom lived there for much of the time of their respective ownership). Over the years, it had fallen to rack and almost ruin by neglect from more recent owners.

In 2015, the building caught fire – the suspected cause was a faulty toaster(!) – and spent the next four years as a burnt-out wreck. In 2019 it was bought by two friends of mine, who then set up the Boleskine House Foundation with a mission to totally rebuild it back to its former Georgian and Jacobean glory. Later that year, I came to visit the place – after asking if I could use my design skills to help the Foundation – and ended up changing my life in such a way (moving 600 miles from Ashford, Kent to Forres) that I now live only 90 minutes away. At the time of writing, the rebuild is less than two months away from final completion.

I became the Head of Publications for the Foundation in late 2019. Part of that role included creating a visual identity based on the building’s past owners to help with early fundraising across the world (for use on flyers, etc.), and set up the Boleskine Journal; a full-colour 28-page glossy magazine detailing the Foundation’s plans, the history of Boleskine and early successes. I was responsible for design and editing (having to cut the sometimes unwieldy academic histories into manageable chunks). Sadly, in 2021 – as much as I would love to have carried on producing the journal – paid work took priority and so I handed it over.

Maybe there’ll be one more issue…?