Pool House: A True Victorian Tale

Contributed by guest blogger Liz Miles:

My family has owned Pool House in the little Highland village of Poolewe for years. We ran it as an upmarket hotel, but it has such interesting stories that we wanted more people to enjoy it, so now we offer tours to show off its Victorian heritage and we serve afternoon teas. 

Pool House is full of antiques and of course I have my favourites, one of which is the stair bannister;  I know that sounds strange but it is a peculiar feature with a fascinating story. Peculiar because it was carved by a young Victorian lady, who took four years to (almost) complete it. Minna Amy Mackenzie had run away from her husband, Osgood Hanbury Mackenzie, and her young daughter, Mary Thyra as well as from their their magnificent baronial house across the bay in Poolewe Garden, which Osgood had created.

Minna stated that “her husband has treated her with much neglect and unkindness and that the differences between them had principally arisen from pecuniary matters relating to the manner in which her funds were settled on her by her marriage-contract”. 

She took sanctuary in Pool House, which at the time was leased by her very wealthy father Sir Thomas Edwards-Moss. Minna claimed that her husband cared more for his mother than he did for her and that even the servants disliked her. Osgood tried to divorce her, claiming “abandonment”, but Minna fought him tooth and nail because, as a divorced woman, she would have been socially ruined. The battle even went to the House of Lords, who decided that the couple should remain married; this was a scandal in Victorian Britain!