Belmont House, Belmont House

Accommodation details:

Sleeps 8-12. The ground floor entrance porch and arched hallway lead on the right to a hand-built kitchen with an excellent range and granite-topped wooden units. There is an impressive dining room and a family room (with sofa bed), while a large shower room and WC sit at the back of the house. The first floor has a magnificent drawing room with windows to three sides, while Thomas Mouat's writing room with its tall Venetian windows overlooks the sea and islands beyond. There are also two bedrooms on the first floor (one double, 1 twin). The top floor has two beautiful bathrooms each with hand-held shower and two twin rooms which have additional fine hand-built box beds (suitable for children only). A large child-friendly garden runs from the front of the house down to the Bluemull Sound and the pier at Belmont, where the ferry from Yell docks. The pavillions to either side of the house provide a laundry.

Services: There is mobile reception (Vodaphone) and broadband at the property.

Additional information: Available from April 30 2011

Local lamb, shellfish and beef can be ordered, and there is also a Farmer's Market once a fortnight. Baltasound and Saxavord offer good places to dine out or we can arrange for someone to come and cook at Belmont House if you prefer.

The Trust can also arrange guided walks, guided fishing trips, bird watching and tours of the island if requested. Indoor swimming and court games also available at the nearby Unst Leisure Centre. (http://www.srt.org.uk/unst for further details).

About the area:

Unst is the most northerly of the Shetland Isles. Just 12 miles long by 5 miles wide, there are majestic cliffs, jagged sea stacks, sheltered inlets, golden beaches and fertile farmland where purebred Shetland sheep and ponies roam the common grazing land. Unst is a major European breeding site for seabirds including gannets, puffins, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and shags as well as skuas, arctic skuas and whimbrels. Seals and porpoises are common and you may even see otters and killer whales. There is excellent bird watching at Hermaness National Nature reserve, and rare plants at Keen of Hamar as well as sea and loch angling. The following websites will provide visitors with lots of useful information on this area:-

www.shetland.org

www.unst.org < Less