Thoughts and Reflections on the Shieling Project

A chance to hear from our team: staff, directors and advisors

The Shieling Blog

A sense of belonging 

How I came to be involved in the Shieling Project

Cultural revival

Why I got involved in the project

In recent years throughout Scotland there has been a surge of interest in the Gaelic concept of dùthchas

Dùthchas - What are we actually talking about?

Healthy communities

How I became involved in the Shieling Project

From volunteer to director

A short blog post exploring some of the plants and flowers found at Dunmaglass

Upland Flora

a blog from one of our newest directors Ben

Slowing Down

Come and make something beautiful with the schools

Come and make something beautiful with the Shieling Project! From weaving a basket with willow, carding, spinning or felting wool from our Shetland sheep, botanical printing or making paper, we have a wide range of traditional crafts to try. 

Craft Holidays in the Scottish Highlands

**Craft Weekend - Basketry (20th - 23rd April 2023) £300**
Glen Strathfarrar

Thursday night arrive
Learn how to create beautiful and useful baskets using a variety of techniques. From home grown willow, you’ll work the whole process from softening the willow, to making the basket shapes and completing decorative edges and handles. This course will progress at your own speed, so there’s no rush to get to the next stage, or if you’re keen you could come home with a lot of baskets!

**Craft Weekend - Felting, tapestry, weaving, spinning  (15 th – 18 th June 2023) £300**
Glen Strathfarrar

Thursday night arrive
Work with raw wool from our Shetland sheep. There will be a wide variety of techniques on
offer starting with wool preparation – washing, carding and spinning – and dyeing with
natural materials. Taking the wool you have prepared and coloured, you’ll have a chance to
trying roller felting as well as needle felting, knitting and tapestry, to create something
beautiful to take home

**Craft Weekend - Botanical Printing ( 31st Aug - 3rd Sept 2023)**

G﻿len Strathfarrar
Thursday night arrive
Using plants and flowers grown locally and harvested just before the course, you’ll create some
stunning colours and patterns on a variety of materials. We will use real fresh leaves and
flowers printing on peace silk or organic cotton using natural dyes and
steaming to create prints, producing stunning table runners or scarves.

At the end of every day there will be time for relaxing a glass of wine or cuppa around the fire with a feeling of physical wellbeing and personal accomplishment.

Materials, accommodation and all food (high quality local and organic) included. All guests help with the food preparation and cleaning up, as cooking our own food, and looking after our place, is a core part of the Shieling Project. We have two staff who will work with you or your child on food preparation and cleaning up, but it is a communal job! We hope you will be happy to muck in and help out. We aim to build a little community for the duration of your stay, and the kitchen is a great place to start that.

#### Craftswoman Profile:
Karen Collins from [Naturally Useful](http://www.naturallyuseful.co.uk/) will return this year to run our craft courses.

Skills for crafting

Crafting 

Natural dyeing

Working with our hands

Traditional Skills

Creativity

Gathering

Craft Week 2021

Crafts

Nature immersion, traditional skills, cooking pizza, foraging for wild food.  This week is a great chance to get stuck into outdoor life and share some good times around the campfire. You will have the opportunity to meet young people from all over the UK and make lasting friendships.

“It was honestly one of the best weeks of my life and I feel I speak for most of us who were there when I say that.”


One of the best weeks!

“I remember having the time of my life and just feeling so alive and free. I though the compost toilets were a great idea and they should be at school”

When you think back to your stay, what do you remember?

Nature immersion, traditional skills and sustainability.  

Connecting to landscapes of the past, present and future in the magical glen Strathfarrar, this week immerses you in ecology, cultural history and traditional skills. From nature immersion and eco-building to traditional crafts, cooking pizza and foraging for wild food this week is a great chance to get stuck into outdoor life and share some good times around the campfire.  You will have the opportunity to meet young people from all over the UK and make lasting friendships.

The week will have a full programme of activities during the days and evenings. We usually have one large project to work on (in 2018 we built a new roof on our barn, in 2019 we built a large bike shed and in 2021 we make a hand washing station) and smaller fun activities in between. Working together we will be cooking, decision making, helping with tasks around the Project and reflecting on our experiences.  What better way to qualify for your Duke of Edinburgh Gold Residential! 

The residential runs Sunday 5pm to Friday 5pm. You can book a local minibus pick you up and drop you off at the Beauly train station, where you can get connections to Inverness train or bus station or Inverness airport. The week costs £300 per person, which includes all food, accommodation and materials.

Teamwork

Learning new skills and forming lifelong friendships

D of E Gold Residential

Harvesting

Exploring and orientating ourselves in the landscape

D of e Gold Residential

Evenings together

Duke of Edinburgh Gold Residential

Come outdoors and get stuck into the shieling life with us.

Do you want to live sustainably, get new skills, and spend time outside? Use a saw, plant a crop, or feed the chickens? Come outdoors and get stuck into the shieling life with us.

We offer a range of engaging activities for your children – den building, exploring, looking after our animals, wild foraging and more. At the end of the day we gather round the fire and tell stories of our adventures – or day dreams!

### Typical Programme:

We generally arrange a variety of activities including basket weaving, natural wool dyeing (using foraged plants), felting, nature walks, drama, as well as making your own firestick. We do many of these activities during the day session (we divide up into a young children’s group, an older children’s group and an optional adults group). The sessions run between 10am and 3pm.

From 3pm to 5pm we ask you to get back together as a family. This is a great time to carry on these activities together, relax or take a walk.  During the evening one family will take the lead assisting with cooking and cleaning up and there will be more activities during the evening. The camp as a whole is run in a relaxed and informal way, so if there’s something you want to do, all you need to do is ask.

Camps run Sunday to Friday, 5pm to 5pm. The cost is £1100 per cabin, which can accommodate 6, so that's just £180 per person for a full week of wonderful activities and food.

Beautiful surroundings

After a day of activities, we gather together to share food and stories. 

Together time

Crafting

Accommodation

Aspen, always interested in what you have to say.

Let’s not forget Aspen

Bring your children out to the wonderful wilds of Strathfarrar and let us entertain them for the day while you relax. Either do a restful nothing, head out to the hills for a walk, or perhaps make a basket, or bake some bread in our outdoor oven. Staff will provide opportunities to keep your hands busy while your mind wanders.

Family Camp

Exploring the hills, making dens, cooking their own food, looking after our animals, making crafty keepsakes – all this is on offer for your child, while you relax at home knowing they are in safe hands.

This is a week-long camp where we will offer all sorts of exciting fun activities, and help your children thrive and feel confident away from home. Our team brings a wealth of experience in outdoor adventure and learning. Your child will come home full of stories and experiences to tell you about, plus perhaps a bit of mud!

The Kids Camp is ideal for children in P5 to P7 (9 to 12 years old), but we have taken children who are younger and older. Please get in touch if you want to chat about booking a place for a child outwith the age range. It costs £300 for the week including food, accommodation and 24 hour care. Reductions are available for siblings

Kids Camp

Kids camp

Learning about how to grow and harvest food

Grow your own

Animal Care

Join us on our Kids Camp

Come and make something beautiful with the Shieling Project

Join Mary Gordon at the Shieling Project for a 5 day residential kilt making workshop where you will be immersed in
the art and heritage of this ancient craft.


Join Mary Gordon and her apprentice(s) at the Shieling Project, an off-grid learning and
outdoor centre, for a 5 day residential kilt making workshop where you will be immersed in
the art and heritage of this ancient craft.

We believe the Shieling Project is the perfect location to endorse the traditions of this ancient craft, whereby the basic natural environment and off grid setting will even further enhance your learning experience.

The workshop is perfect for those who are interested in making a kilt for themselves or a loved one, have a keen interest in the history of tartan and kilts and who are comfortable spending 5-6 days in the communal, off grid environment offered by the Shieling Project.

The course is open to all of those that have a basic ability to sew and an enthusiasm for the textile crafts.

Materials, accommodation and all food (high quality local and organic) included. All guests help with the food preparation and cleaning up, as cooking our own food, and looking after our place, is a core part of the Shieling Project. We have two staff who will work with you or your child on food preparation and cleaning up, but it is a communal job! We hope you will be happy to muck in and help out. We aim to build a little community for the duration of your stay, and the kitchen is a great place to start that.

Learn this traditional craft at the Shieling Project

Kiltmaking

Coming together to share stories and food

Sunrise

Join us and make your own kilt

Kilt Making

Summer camps in the Scottish Highlands for Schools

We provide outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level

Residential Outdoor Learning Experiences in Highland Scotland

A visit to the Shieling Project can link history, geography, sciences, language and enterprise, themes of sustainable development education, health and well-being and global citizenship, all anchored in a fun and memorable experience. We will work with you to tailor the learning to your curriculum plan, or subject areas, and the resources you will have access to before and after your visit will help you make the most of how we deliver the [Curriculum for Excellence](https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/What%20is%20Curriculum%20for%20Excellence?) at the Shieling Project.

We will look back to a time when folk took the livestock up into the hills for the summer, making butter and cheese and staying in bothies until the autumn. This tells us a lot about young people in the past, their skills and resilience, relationship to the land and sense of place. And we will look forward, asking what this tradition can teach us now. 

If you come to learn with us you will learn traditional skills including weaving baskets and dying wool, foraging and using useful natural plants. You will learn about place-names, create your own shieling poetry and stories, map the area, study the plants and animals, milk cows and make butter and cheese. Our modern shieling inspired camp is a great place to learn about and take part in sustainable building and investigate waste and energy use by studying our compost toilets, solar photovoltaic panels and solid wood biomass boiler. We also plant trees to help increase biodiversity and the native woodland cover around us.

We provide outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level. You can come for one to five days, prices start from £60/head/day. Our residentials can be linked to larger projects within the school using our digital learning resources. We are an accredited SQA Centre and can offer our Shieling Award at levels 2,3 and 4.

“Thanks again for the Family hol, it came at just the right time for us, it was really refreshing to be in such an environment with like-minded folk.  We have been inspired to make changes to how we live and eat and hope to start keeping chickens/ducks.”

We have been inspired to make changes to how we live

Shieling site from above

School Residentials

School Residentials & Summer camps


We run a variety of hands on craft courses with expert craftspeople. From compost toilet building to timber framing and turf roofing. Join people who make their livelihood from these traditional crafts and gain skills working on real buildings. 

The Shieling Project has built almost all of its buildings itself with children and volunteers, and won the ‘Innovation in Delivering a Sustainable Learning Space’ award in 2019. We introduced building courses in 2021, making a new wash shelter and in 2022 we built a new compost toilet building during a course.

**Courses for 2023**

**Compost Toilet Building**

Waterless toilets are often the most environmental and suitable solutions in remote locations. They also save a surprising amount of water and produce usable compost. This course will construct a compost toilet over two days, focusing on how the building keeps down odours, separates the solids, and gathers compost. We will do some construction too as part of the course.

**Turf roof and wall building**

Turf roofs aren’t just beautiful! They slow down water run off, insulate and provide habitat, plus often reuse the turf cleared to put up the building. We will turf a compost toilet building, looking at roof membranes, drainage and how to keep the turf on. We will also look at turf walls – both fully turf and a turf and stone mix. These are easy to construct (compared to stone walls!) and very robust when grown in.

We have run an Introduction to Timber Building and Timber Framing course in the past, and we may do again when we have new buildings to work on during the course. These courses introduced and honed a wide range of skills need for timber construction including all the tools, layout, joinery and raising the building itself.

Timber Craft

Sustainable Building

The finished result

A week outdoors meeting other young people and getting stuck into shilling life. 

There is lots to do including:

* Learning crafts like basketry or felting:  
* Taking care of the chickens:
* Hiking in the local area:
* Foraging for edible plants. 

Everyone helps to keep the place running including cooking and cleaning up and making decisions about what to do each day.

This week-long camp will help your children thrive and feel confident away from home. Our team brings a wealth of experience in outdoor adventure and learning. Your child will come home full of stories and experiences to tell you about, plus perhaps a bit of mud!

The Teen Camp is ideal for children in S1 to S3 (12 to 15 years old), but we have taken children who are younger and older. It costs £300 for the week including food, accommodation and 24 hour care. Reductions are available for siblings

Teen Camp

Every day we come together to share food, stories and music

Ecosystems - The interconnectedness of everything

Getting to know the local area and exploring the Scottish Highlands

Exploring

We always gravitate towards the campfire at the end of the day - to share stories, food and more. 

Campfire

Struy Accommodation

You can hire the whole site in Highland Scotland

Do you want to hire the Shieling Project and use it to run a workshop, a staff training weekend, or an event?

We will look back to a time when folk took the livestock up into the hills for the summer, making butter and cheese and staying in bothies until the autumn. This tells us a lot about young people in the past, their skills and resilience, relationship to the land and sense of place. And we will look forward, asking what this tradition can teach us now. 

If you come to learn with us you will learn traditional skills including weaving baskets and dying wool, foraging and using useful natural plants. You will learn about place-names, create your own shieling poetry and stories, map the area, study the plants and animals, milk cows and make butter and cheese. Our modern shieling inspired camp is a great place to learn about and take part in sustainable building and investigate waste and energy use by studying our compost toilets, solar photovoltaic panels and solid wood biomass boiler. We also plant trees to help increase biodiversity and the native woodland cover around us.

We provide outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level. You can come for one to five days, prices start from £60/head/day. Our residentials can be linked to larger projects within the school using our digital learning resources. We are an accredited SQA Centre and can offer our Shieling Award at levels 2,3 and 4.

Venue Hire

We offer a range of camps for children, young people and families: Kids Camp, Teen Camp, Duke of Edinburgh Gold Residential and Family Camp

We provide outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level. You can come for one to five days, prices start from £60/head/day. Our residentials can be linked to larger projects within the school using our digital learning resources. We are an accredited SQA Centre and can offer our Shieling Award at levels 2,3 and 4.

A visit to the Shieling Project can link history, geography, sciences, language and enterprise, themes of sustainable development education, health and well-being and global citizenship, all anchored in a fun and memorable experience. We will work with you to tailor the learning to your curriculum plan, or subject areas, and the resources you will have access to before and after your visit will help you make the most of how we deliver the [Curriculum for Excellence](https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/What%20is%20Curriculum%20for%20Excellence?) at the Shieling Project.

We will look back to a time when folk took the livestock up into the hills for the summer, making butter and cheese and staying in bothies until the autumn. This tells us a lot about young people in the past, their skills and resilience, relationship to the land and sense of place. And we will look forward, asking what this tradition can teach us now. 

If you come to learn with us you will find out about traditional skills like weaving baskets and dying wool, finding useful natural plants. You will learn about the place-names, create your own shieling poetry and stories, map the area, study the plants and animals, milk our cows and make butter and cheese. Our modern shieling inspired camp is a great place to learn about and take part in sustainable building, investigate think about waste and energy use by studying our compost toilets, solar photovoltaic panels and solid wood biomass boiler. We also plant trees to help increase biodiversity and the native woodland cover around us.

Resources you will have access to before and after your visit will help you make the most of how we deliver the Curriculum for Excellence at the Shieling Project.

Come and experience summer in the glen for 5 days and 5 nights

Events

Camps

Outdoor Learning at our SQA registered centre in Highland Scotland

We provide day trip and residential outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level

A visit to the Shieling Project can link history, geography, sciences, language and enterprise, themes of sustainable development education, health and well-being and global citizenship, all anchored in a fun and memorable experience. We will work with you to tailor the learning to your curriculum plan, or subject areas, and the resources you will have access to before and after your visit will help you make the most of how we deliver the [Curriculum for Excellence](https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/What%20is%20Curriculum%20for%20Excellence?) at the Shieling Project.

We will look back to a time when folk took the livestock up into the hills for the summer, making butter and cheese and staying in bothies until the autumn. This tells us a lot about young people in the past, their skills and resilience, relationship to the land and sense of place. And we will look forward, asking what this tradition can teach us now. 

If you come to learn with us you will find out about traditional skills like weaving baskets and dying wool, finding useful natural plants. You will learn about the place-names, create your own shieling poetry and stories, map the area, study the plants and animals, milk our cows and make butter and cheese. Our modern shieling inspired camp is a great place to learn about and take part in sustainable building, investigate think about waste and energy use by studying our compost toilets, solar photovoltaic panels and solid wood biomass boiler. We also plant trees to help increase biodiversity and the native woodland cover around us.

We provide outdoor learning experiences for classes of up to 33 children at Primary and Secondary level. You can come for one to five days, prices start from £60/head/day. Our residentials can be linked to larger projects within the school using our digital learning resources. We are an accredited SQA Centre and can offer our Shieling Award at levels 2,3 and 4.

The Shieling Project is an SQA centre. We are registered to provide our very own customised award - the Shieling Project Award - at levels 2,3 and 4.

SQA Centre

Schools

Come learn with us. Find out about traditional skills such as kilt-making, basket weaving, spinning, natural dyeing, felting, spoon making, botanical printing, paper-making or building your own timber structures in one of our 3 courses - Kilt-making, Crafting and Introduction to Timber Framing.

Come to learn with us you will find out about traditional skills like weaving baskets and spinning, dying and felting wool, making paper and other croft skills.


Skills

Do you want to hire the Shieling Project and use it to run a workshop, a staff training weekend, or an event?

Venue Hire - The Shieling Project (Struy)

 You can hire the whole site and make use of our outstanding location and simple but beautiful off-grid facilities. We have accommodation for up to 36 people in our bespoke bothies, a large ‘classroom’ space which includes chairs, tables and AV equipment. Other facilities include a lovely communal kitchen space for cooking, two compost toilet areas, shower room and pizza oven. We are keen to host groups who would like to use our site for organisational development or events like staff training, or would like our input into sustainability and environmental leadership. Running your event at the Shieling Project can inspire your group, or give your staff ideas for new ways of working. Being at the Shieling Project also gives the chance to see and live a sustainable lifestyle which can compliment the theme of your event or the topic of your meeting.

At Struy we have accommodation for up to 36 people in our bespoke bothies,

Communal cooking space

Come together at the end of the day and gather round the fire. 

Outdoor Gathering Area

Our kitchen by evening. A cosy warm place in which to prepare food. 

Am Bothan Bidhe

"The Shieling Project was the ideal venue for our postgraduate training event, especially since we were considering the ways in which ecology, history, and land reform intersect. An Talla was a superb space for talks, workshops, and presentations; the cooking facilities in Am Bothan Bìdhe allowed us to comfortably cater for fifty hungry postgrads; the bothies kept everyone comfortable through some fairly frosty May nights; and the large, open space around the campfire was the perfect hub for informal socialising in the evenings."

Post Graduate Event

"“The venue was perfect... I loved relaxing in nature and the expertise of all the participants. The ceilidh culture & convivial atmosphere were my favourite part."

Feedback

Drone footage of the Shieling Project, Struy