Lochview Cottage

Port Charlotte, Isle of Islay, Argyll

	Lochview Cottage is at the west end of the beautiful village of Port Charlotte, with uninterrupted views across Lochindaal to Laggan and the Oa. It offers twin-bedded accommodation for two people, and also has a double sofa-bed in the kitchen/sitting-room. The Cottage has off-the-road parking and is three minutes' stroll from the centre of the village. All linen is provided, but please bring your own towels. Well-behaved pets are welcome.
The view over to Laggan from the front window of the Cottage

	Kitchen area of Kitchen/Sitting Room. Equipped with electric cooker, microwave, washing machine and fridge.
Front area of Kitchen/Sitting Room, with sofa bed, television and DVD player. There is an open fire here, which you may light if you wish. However, the cottage has full oil-fired central heating.
	Twin bedroom

Prices are quoted per week, running from 3pm on Saturday to 10am on the last Saturday of the let.

In case you are not using a UK character set, prices below are in pounds sterling.

Please print out our Booking Form, fill it in and send it to us either by fax to (0)1496 810953 (if you are paying the deposit by credit/debit card) or by post to Liz and Dave Sykes, Islay House Square, Bridgend, Islay, PA44 7NZ, Scotland.

Please phone 01496 810147 or fax 01496 810953 or Email with enquiries.

Please note that the Conditions of Let appear on the booking form.

Please send a deposit of £50 per week booked on booking. The balance is payable not later than four weeks prior to the first date of the let. Payments may be made by sterling cheque on a UK bank, or by any of the following cards:

Visa Mastercard Delta Switch/Maestro Solo Visa Electron

In the case of the booking not being available, if you have sent the deposit by cheque, this will be returned to you immediately. If you have sent card details for payment of the deposit, this will not be charged to your card and you will be informed immediately.

Please make cheques payable to David Sykes.

Considered by many to be the most attractive village on the Island, Port Charlotte stands on the West shore of Lochindaal, the great sea-loch in the Southwest of Islay.

The Port Charlotte Hotel, the Lochindaal Hotel and the Croft Kitchen provide a wide variety of good food. The hotels have friendly bars in which live music is regularly performed. Please note that these are very popular eating places during the summer. If you are relying on the Port Charlotte Hotel for your evening meal on the day you arrive, you must book a table well in advance of your journey.

There is a Spar general store, post office and filling station. DVDs can be hired there. Mountain bikes can be hired. Islay is ideal for exploring by bike, the island being about thirty miles long by twenty wide and the roads generally not being too hilly (there are exceptions to this on the West Coast of the Rhinns, not far from Port Charlotte, but the view is so stunning that you'd want to dismount and look at it anyway!)

Opposite the Croft Kitchen is the prize-winning Museum of Islay Life, which contains exhibits and information relating to everything from the prehistoric to the 20th century. If you are tracing your ancestors, contact the Islay Family History Society in Islay House Square, Bridgend.

The view across Lochindaal to Laggan, the Oa and Northern Ireland is breath-taking, and this is exactly what you see from the front window of the Cottage.

There is a well-equipped medical centre in the village.

Islay is a place of great beauty and peace. Never "developed" for tourism, visitors come here to see a Hebridean island in its unspoiled state.

It is world-famous for bird-watching. From October to April, Islay is host to a large proportion of the world populations of Barnacle and Greenland White-fronted Geese. All year round, however, there is an amazing variety of birds to see, particularly waders and raptors and the rare chough. Information can be obtained from the RSPB Visitor Centre at Gruinart and the Islay Wildlife Information Centre in Port Charlotte.

Islay is a whisky island. There are eight working distilleries, plus one on the neighbouring island of Jura, and a maltings at Port Ellen. All of these run very interesting tours. Our nearest distillery, Bruichladdich, was re-opened in 2001 and the newest distillery, Kilchoman, which takes whisky-making back to its farm-based roots, only opened in 2005. The owners of Bruichladdich Distillery are starting work on re-opening the Lochindaal Distillery in Port Charlotte, which closed in 1929. This will return to its original 1829 name: the Port Charlotte Distillery. The first turf was cut on Sunday 27 May 2007.

Bowmore, the administrative centre of the island, with its famous Round Church (no corners for the devil to hide in) at the top of its Georgian Main Street, contains the island's larger Co-op super-market (the other is in Port Ellen) and a variety of other shops, the Mactaggart Leisure Centre with its modern swimming pool, sauna and gym, and the Tourist Information Centre.

The newly opened Gaelic centre, Ionad Chaluim Chille Ile, is sited here.

Bowmore has two banks, the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which have autotellers. (There is also a charging Link machine in the Port Charlotte village shop, C. & S. Monks, and in Jimmy Campbell's shop in Bridgend.) Islay Hospital is also sited in Bowmore (in addition to doctors, Islay has a dentist, optician and physiotherapist).

There are many historic and prehistoric sites on the Island, including Finlaggan, the seat of the Lords of the Isles, Kildalton Chapel with its famous celtic cross, Kilchiaran Chapel, claimed to be St. Columba's first landfall when he came from Ireland and before he moved on to Iona, and many deserted villages.

At Bridgend, eight miles from Port Charlotte, there is a woollen mill using traditional equipment and manufacturing very high-quality tweed. In Islay House Square, a few hundred yards outside Bridgend on the Port Askaig Road is a batik studio and gallery (we must declare an interest here: Liz is the batik artist) which also provides a fast, high-quality picture-framing service, the Islay Quilters workshop and exhibition, Islay Ales brewery, Billy Muir, a joiner and cabinet-maker, Sophie Younger, a textile conserver, Sue East Wood, a stained glass worker, Blue Lupins, which has a decorative garden and sells plants, and Making-Away, an art gallery which also provides a sewing and clothing repair service and digital photography printing. The Square, dating from around 1750, has beautiful architecture and is well worth a visit.

Visitor welcome evenings are held regularly at varying locations around the Island. Please enquire at the Tourist Information Centre.

Cars can be hired from D. & N. Mackenzie at Glenegedale, next to the Airport.

There is a Telecentre at the offices of our local newspaper, the Ileach, in Bowmore, where you can use PCs and check your email, etc..