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The new house at 'Castles' is a 3 storey "bungalow" designed to look as small as possible from the public road which stops at the gate to the property meaning there is no passing traffic as 'Castles' is the last property on the island. All that is seen from the road is a 'V' shaped bungalow although the new house is actually ‘Y’ shaped on the ground and the first floor.

The basement is under the front 2/3rd of the house and will accommodate 8 to 10 cars. It is constructed of 12'' (30cm) re-enforced concrete walls with tanking and land drainage to all backfilled areas while the basement roof / ground floor is constructed of 200mm ’Bison’ slabs.

The entire ground floor of the house has 75mm concrete on 50mm ‘Kingspan’ insulation on 50mm ‘Jablite’ insulation in which all the hot and cold service pipes are recessed. There are 18 circuits of under-floor heating pipes and no joints whatsoever in the under-floor pipe work.

The external walls above basement level are built from new Yorkshire coursed walling stone while internal walls and solid partitions are constructed from insulated ‘Fibalite’ blocks.

The floor areas are approximately:

• Basement 2120 sq ft (200 sq mtr).
• Ground floor 2800 sq ft (265 sq mtr).
• First floor 1450 sq ft (139 sq mtr).

Total floor area:

• 6370 sq ft (604 sq mtr) approximately.

Photo Gallery of the New House at 'Castles' on Eday, Orkney - Outside views

Click on any photo in the gallery to enlarge.

The original plan for the New House at 'Castles' is for a 3 bedroom, one en-suite, family home with lounge, breakfast kitchen, utility room, cloak room, drying room and bathroom, which would take up all of the two seaward facing sections of the ‘Y’ of the house. The third section of the ‘Y’ would provide a separate entrance to the B & B section of the property with a disabled access en-suite bedroom, residents lounge and dining room and staircase to two further en-suite bedrooms on the first floor of that section.

Eday has an acute shortage of bed & breakfast accommodation little of which is purpose built. Over the past few years millions of pounds have been invested through ‘EMEC’ in an offshore test centre for tidal electricity generators just off the west coast of Eday which is due to carry on for at least the next 10 years. There are also many holiday visitors to the island as well as contractors and professionals who stay on the island in the course of their work which has meant that many months of the year demand for B & B accommodation has out stripped supply.

The new owner of the property would obviously not have to stick to this plan providing the new plans met with building controls standards.

The Planning and Building Control departments of Orkney Island Council Are the most helpful I have come across in almost 50 years in the construction industry. They actively encourage responsible development of the northern isles as part of the councils policy to re-populate the outer isles. Despite the new house being on a greenfield site that had never had any form of building on it previously, full planning permission was granted within 6 weeks of the plans being submitted. Planning was also granted to convert one of the stone out buildings to a one bedroom cottage.

I stopped work on the house in June 2008 when my estranged wife and I separated though I have maintained the property and gardens during that period. It was only in June this year that settlement was reached and the properties transferred into my sole name.

This is an absolutely fantastic opportunity for someone to build their dream home in a dream location with all the hard work done: planning, a massive earth moving operation, ground works, drains, etc. The logistics alone of getting almost 1000 tons of materials on to an island 2 ferry rides away from John O’Groats is a story in itself.

The house is wind and water tight with roof and drainage complete. All windows and doors are fitted with the exception of the garage doors and the main entrance door which is stored inside the house waiting to replace the house's temporary wooden door. The interior of the house is truly ‘a blank canvas’. With the exception of the block-work ground floor walls in the B & B part of the house room sizes and layouts could be to your own requirements as the room in the roof trusses over the front two sections requires no further support.

Although the building warrant granted in 2003 has now expired, providing the works are completed to the building inspectors satisfaction and to 2003 standards then building control will issue ’a letter of comfort’ instead of a building warrant which is acceptable to building societies etc. To obtain a full building warrant a new building warrant application would have to be submitted that met current building regulations but I feel certain that the insulation values of the house, as built, will exceed even the latest building regulations. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information to clarify the planning and building warrant issues or for contacts in Orkney Island Councils departments.

Click on any photo in the gallery to enlarge.

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