We were all down at the Rowardennan Hotel’s charity fireworks last night when some friends came over and asked us about the Shepherd’s Hut. Then today another friend, who we’d not seen in a couple of months, came up to us at Killearn Craft Fair and asked about it too.
I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose; we live our lives on Facebook and through blog entries these days so a lot of people know what’s going on with us even though our remote location means we don’t see them as often as we’d like. Even so, it’s great that the shepherd’s hut has captured so many imaginations.
Best of all, however, was that we took our first booking for the shepherd’s hut only five hours after officially placing the order for it. That was a real blessing and if there had been any grain of doubt about expanding the Shepherd’s House in this way (and I’m not sure that there was, to be honest), it is now well and truly dispelled.
We’re also feeling ever so pleased with the name we have chosen for the shepherd’s hut, “The Shepherd’s Rest”. Our joiner called it that at the top of the page when he quoted for the work and I’m pretty sure we’d not said to him that we’d been thinking about that as a name. Then today, our very last guests of the year (so far) left us a very lovely Trip Advisor review in which they said they kept referring to us as the “Shepherd’s Rest”. If staying here makes folks think about resting, getting it into the name of the new shepherd’s hut can only be a good thing, I think.
Things we still need to establish as we think about advertising:
1. Is this the only shepherd’s hut in Scotland? By that I mean, is it the only heated, double-glazed, en-suite shepherd’s hut in Scotland? I know there are a few knocking about, the company that is building ours sent one way up north to a shooting estate a few months ago, but it’s pretty bare and is in use as a simple shelter. What we need to find out is, when people think about B&B or glamping in a shepherd’s hut in Scotland, what’s out there for them to find? Drop us a line if you know of one!
2. If there are any shepherd’s huts in Scotland, where are they? Are they near us? Are they being used as glamping huts or full-on, farmhouse style B&B as tends to happen down south? If there are any near us, are there any shepherd’s huts near Loch Lomond, or anywhere in the national park?
It would be great to be able to say we’re unique in the national park. Unique in Scotland would be even better! So if you come across any shepherd’s huts in your journeys around Scotland (or if you try to find one, but fail), please let us know.
