Castletown Mill, one of Scotland’s most famous landmarks in the north east, is the home of Stannergill Whisky and will become one of the country’s most northerly distillery visitor attractions when it officially opens in March.
Based in Thurso, the whisky venture is the brainchild of the founders of Dunnet Bay Distillers, producers of award-winning Rock Rose Gin, Martin and Claire Murray, who have spent six years restoring the 19th-century grain mill into the area’s newest visitor attraction.
According to the pair, it wasn’t just the perfect place to launch their whisky journey, but it was a chance to revive a much-loved landmark in the Caithness community back to its former glory.
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“We just loved it. It’s an iconic building right on the main road,” Martin told The National.
“I think anyone in Caithness, when it was in that derelict state, when you drove past it, you dreamed of what it could be.
“Everybody daydreams about something, and when I used to come out to see Claire, you drive past it, you think, ‘oh, that would make an amazing house, or it would make an amazing hotel’, and it’s just all like pie in the sky stuff.”
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Martin continued: “It was really sad to see it getting in a state of disrepair, so there was a practical part to it too, where it was a perfect building for whisky.
“With the view right over the beach is unbelievable, it’s right on the main road, it’s perfect for tourism.
“So, there was the emotional part, but also then there was a kind of practical or rational part that made it stack up.”
A large part of the project, which was designed by Scottish distillery specialists Organic Architects, was keeping the character of the mill while also preserving its heritage during the conversion.
The team worked in consultation with the Highland Council and Historic Environment Scotland (HES), with the latter supplying a grant of £500,000 to make sure the conservation was kept to the organisation’s “high standards,” both Martin and Claire explained.
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Local contractor, Norbloc Construction, led the project, as supporting homegrown workers throughout the project was a key priority for the pair, as they believed it was important locals were involved.
One of the largest parts of the project was repointing the building, which took three men nine months and around two kilometers of mortar, to remove any damaged or cracked mortar from between bricks and replace it.
Another large part of the project was replacing the Caithness stone roof on the front of the building.
Martin explained they could have easily replaced it with a metal tin one, which would have been a lot cheaper too, but the pair wanted to make sure every aspect of the building was kept true to its former self.
null (Image: Dunnet Bay Distillers)
“The last time the contractor worked on a Caithness stone roof was when he was an apprentice,” Martin said.
“So that must have been like 40 years ago, and he said confidently that it would be the last one that he’ll see, and he took on an apprentice for that job, so it was really unusual.”
Claire added that the people in Caithness are “absolutely delighted” that the building has been restored, adding that there is a “lot of pride” in its history and that she and Martin see the conversion as the “next chapter” in the mill’s story.
She told The National: “Anybody from Caithness knows the building and has seen it decline for lots of years, but there’s so much history in it.
“There’s loads of history in the building, which then leads into the whole tourism side of it, the stories that we want to tell, that it’s more than just about whisky.”
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Although the first batch of Stannergill whisky is not expected to be produced until around 2030, the pair has planned to make the mill a lot more than just a distillery.
The site also includes a restaurant, a shop, and the plan to also make it a destination to host weddings and other private functions in a bid to make it a new visitor destination on the North Coast 500 route.
Claire explained that one of the main lessons they learned with their gin distillery, which is on the opposite end of the beach, is that local people don’t “come and do tours every year”.
She said: “We learned quite quickly that we had to do events and experiences to bring people in the offseason and through the rest of the year, so what we tried to do with those lessons that we learned was apply them to the mill.
“So we are looking to do events, but also year-round hospitality with the cafe so that it becomes a local destination.”
Claire added: “We’re catering to the locals because they’re as much part of it.
“The locals have given us so much support with the gin business and the mill project. It’s just amazing.”
null (Image: Castletown Mill)
The pair added that the new business adventure has been a “natural evolution” for them to go from gin, vodka, and rum to whisky.
“We’re inquisitive and we want to learn and we want the kind of challenge of new products and new processes,” Martin said.
He added: “To be able to do the mill and do the restoration, we had to be realistic about it.
“We have to do something that is going to attract people and that is going to pay back the development costs.
“Whisky ticked that box, as it’s got huge tourism numbers, it’s got global appeal and global growth potential.
“For us, it was kind of like the natural side of the evolution for our business, but then the second part was, if we’d done a gin distillery in the mill, it wouldn’t have worked.
“It wouldn’t have paid back, but for whisky it definitely does.”
Martin and Claire said the official opening of Castletown Mill is due around March 27 and 28 and that people can keep up to date with the launch of the distillery, learn more about the mill’s history, on their website .