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

The Shieling site

Kate has a long-standing interest in working with young people dating right back to her school days when she volunteered as a gymnastics coach and yoga helper. She spent 6 months working as a volunteer English teacher in a rural school in North East India and following university, worked as an au-pair in Spain. She is a qualified yoga teacher and has spent time living and working in small communities in Algeria (southern Spain) and on the Isle of Gigha. She will be commencing the PGDE primary education course in 2023 and hopes to ultimately train as a forest school teacher.
 
“The Shieling Project aligns my interests of working with kids, off-grid sustainable living, community and spending time outside sharing the benefits of nature with others. I hope the young people attending the camp are able to switch off from stresses of normal life - reconnect with each other and take time to slow down and appreciate the beautiful surroundings of the Shieling Project! I hope everyone has fun and spends as much time outside as possible!!!”

Kate Crawley

About the Team

Environmental Education and Karen is now currently studying for a MSc in Learning for Sustainability. This theme links global citizenship, environmental education, outdoor learning, health and well-being and educational for sustainable development.

Environmental Education!

Team in action

Social Purpose

Karen Marshall is a BSc graduate of Glasgow University in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry. She found earlier degree courses in Environmental Chemistry and Archaeology very inspiring. Karen studied teaching through Strathclyde University and has taught secondary school Science and Chemistry in the Highlands since 2007. A passion for change to the purpose and pedagogy of education has led to further studies in the field of Environmental Education and Karen is now currently studying for a MSc in Learning for Sustainability. This theme links global citizenship, environmental education, outdoor learning, health and well-being and educational for sustainable development.

Meet The Team!

Team Page

Abel is excited about facilitating people to connect with, enjoy and care for the natural world through outdoor education, guiding and landscape architecture. He splits his time between working with a wide range of people in the outdoors, and as a Landscape Architect and Ecologist. In both roles Abel facilitates interpreting the natural world in a way that allows people to connect with it in a meaningful way - a way that hopefully inspires respect for the world around us. Abel moved up the Highlands as soon he graduated and since then has taken every opportunity to get out in the hills, whether it be hill running, climbing, mountain biking, or just going for a wander in the natural world. Abel an active member of Torridon Mountain Rescue Team, covering one of the most rugged landscapes in the Scottish North West. You'll often find him pottering about the lesser known corners of this special part of the world - and he'd love to show you around!

Abel McLinden

Ben is a passionate educator and researcher, who enjoys working with a range of groups on sustainability and social-justice issues. After completing a Research Masters in Human Geography, Ben has worked on a number of environmental and education research projects. He recently finished a role at Children’s Neighborhoods Scotland, a place-based participatory action-research project working with communities living in areas of multiple deprivation across Glasgow. Outside of work, Ben is an avid hill runner and also loves spending time cycling, hiking or gardening.

Ben Murphy

Jamie is an environmental and rural land lawyer based in Forres, Moray where he is a partner of R & R Urquhart.  He was Morehead-Cain Scholar to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he earned a BA Hons in modern languages, before completing an LLB in law at the University of Edinburgh and where he has taught environmental and renewable energy law to graduate students since 2007.  He gained an MSc with distinction in human ecology at the Centre for Human Ecology, and turned his thesis on the watershed of the River Findhorn into a book, ‘White River’.  He first met Sam Harrison in 2000 when they both volunteered on The Ladakh Project in India.  He lives with his wife, children and cairn terrier near Hopeman where Jamie runs the local Cub Scout pack.  Passionate about the outdoors and conservation, he is mad keen skier, canoeist and surfer. 

Jamie Whittle

Col Gordon is a farmer’s son, researcher and baker who’s based on his family’s farm in the Scottish Highlands. He has worked with heritage grains as a seed researcher, grower and baker for over a decade and hopes to one day to spend his summers milking his cattle in the hills and help revive the shieling system as a productive, viable and appropriate agroecological system for the Gàidhealtachd. In 2021 he narrated and co-produced Farmerama’s well received podcast series “Landed,” which investigated the past, present and future of the family farm model through the lens of colonialism.

Col Gordon

James Chitty is a designer, maker, carpenter, and artist based in Moray James trained in Furniture Design at Edinburgh College of Art and Rhode Island School of Design and has spent the last 20 years working on all kinds of projects, mostly in Scotland. Having always had in interest in materials, structures and making as well as people he has pursued these interests in various ways through furniture design, making, drawing and printing, traditional timber framing and various collaborative construction projects facilitating community groups and volunteers to work together building timber structures, a community rowing skiff and furniture. 

“I love making things and even more helping other people make things.
I’m inspired by the satisfaction that people of all ages can derive from making things. I also know from my own experience the importance of engaging in a physical activity that, with practice, can give us an important break from our busy minds. If we can do this together, and outside, then all the better.”



James Chitty

Jane is currently a Secondary school Teacher but has worked widely in Museum Education and Arts Administration since 1994. She has wide experience of creating placed-based content for the secondary curriculum and has encouraged schools to engage more widely through partner organisations to deliver more enriched educational experiences. Her education work with the Forestry Commission and Archaeology partners has been nominated for a British Archaeology Award.

Jane has been involved with the Shieling Project since she completed a Professional Recognition in Learning For Sustainability with Sam Harrison. She has been on the board since 2019.

Other interests included hill-walking, local food, music and Border Terriers.

Jane Summers

Jean Langhorne has been involved in the Shieling Project, as a Director, since its inception in 2013.  Although she is a Zoology graduate, she initially worked in the arts for about 8 years; in community dance and theatre-in-education. Eventually, she ended up in various environmental education roles, applying an interdisciplinary approach to outdoor learning experiences.
She has worked with a variety of artists and educators to develop creative and collaborative projects which can bring new perspectives to the relationship we have with the natural world and which provide catalysts for change at a personal level.  More recently, as part of an MLitt in Environment, Culture and Communication, she developed her own personal “placefulness” practice and an adaptable and accessible workshop to allow others to experience how walking can be used as an attentional and embodied practice of place. 


Jean Langhorne

I'm the founder of Naturally useful a collective of makers making beautiful natural products from locally sourced materials, I love to source raw materials from the environment sustainable of course, hedgerow, grasses, hazels, we do grow all our willow and buy fleeces form local farmers. I met Sam through a mutual friend and loved his vision of the sheiling product, showing people a sustainable way to live and how our ancestors used to do it.
I love to teach about what we can harvest from our own back door and then show how to transform this material into something useful, that enlivens our soul and beautify our homes.
I feel very blessed that I can spend a lot of my time making using my hands as tools it gives me a great sense of peace and fulfilment. I hope all my participants feel the fulfilment of making something by hand.
I have seen the shieling project go from strength to strength over the 5 years, my first visited and had to stay in a tent on very bumpy ground, listening to the deer running past the tent in the night, and wandering if I was going to get trampled on as there was a heck of a lot racing past.


Karen Collins

Col Gordon is a farmer’s son, researcher and baker who’s based on his family’s farm in the Scottish Highlands. He has worked with heritage grains as a seed researcher, grower and baker for over a decade and hopes to one day to spend his summers milking his cattle in the hills and help revive the shieling system as a productive, viable and appropriate agroecological system for the Gàidhealtachd. In 2021 he narrated and co-produced Farmerama’s well received podcast series “Landed,” which investigated the past, present and future of the family farm model through the lens of colonialism. 

Kat Lee is a former paediatric nurse and FE lecturer in health and social care.  She grew up on the West Coast, near Balmacara; went to Hull University to do nurse training and then moved back to the Highlands with her husband and children in 2013.  After a few house moves they settled into the amazing community of Rogart in Sutherland,  In 2021 an unexpected injury and change in family circumstances led to a change of pace and direction. 

"I knew of the Shieling Project in Struy as I lived in Drumnadrochit for a time after we relocated back home, so when Sam began work at the Helmsdale site I was keen to offer some time.  I am passionate about the project for several reasons, including the sharing and nurturing of traditional skills and the grounding the project in Scottish history.  I am incredibly passionate about health and education (as my career bio suggests) and I feel that the project feeds into both of these areas through the sharing of stories, teaching of skills and the provision of social opportunity.  Another central tenet for me is also the growing, harvesting and preparing of own food - I am very motivated in relation to promoting the holistic physical and psychosocial health benefits of the concept of growing, preparing, cooking eating and sharing local produce and the fact that the project provides opportunity for education on all of the above is incredibly exciting to me". 

Kat Lee

Laura first worked with children whilst living in India at a research centre where she ran creative workshops for the kids who lived in the nearby village. She then went to Australia and studied permaculture, which lead to her working in the local primary school food forests. Following this, she decided to pursue working with children and young people teaching sustainability and land and social regeneration within a health and well-being context. She completed a postgrad diploma in primary teaching in 2021 and has been working with the Highland Good Food Partnership since. Alongside this she also has experience teaching English to adults and Yoga. 


“I love what's happening at the Sheiling Project, it's a special and unique place, and it aligns perfectly with my own ideas about what education should be about and how and what I want to teach. 
I hope the kids and families coming to the camps in the summer enjoy themselves, get a chance to properly unwind and leave with new skills, experiences and friends. I think the Sheiling Project is one of those places that can change how we see life and positively influence what we value. I would like the children to gain confidence in themselves and their relationship to the land, and to have lots of fun”!

Laura Dorantt

O﻿lly joined us in 2022 as our site manager. He is responsible for maintaining the site, crops, livestock and all the variety of practical tasks that keep the place running smoothly day to day.

Olly Williams

Professor Hugh Cheape has devised and teaches a postgraduate programme, MSc Cultar Dùthchasach agus Eachdraidh na Gàidhealtachd (‘Material Culture and Gàidhealtachd History’), at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture. He holds a Research Chair in the University of the Highlands and Islands. The MSc has grown out of his curatorial and ethnological work during a career in the National Museums Scotland (1974-2007) where latterly he was a Principal Curator in the Department of Scotland and Europe. He has researched and published in the subject fields of ethnology and musicology, including studies in Scottish agricultural history, vernacular architecture, piping, tartans and dye analysis, pottery, charms and amulets and talismanic belief.

Professor Hugh Cheape

Robbie is a Professor of Place-Based Education at the University of Edinburgh where he is a teacher, researcher and residential education campaigner.  His life motivation comes from the realisation that human activities are fundamentally altering the planet’s ability to sustain all species including the human race.  As an educator he believe that the outdoors provide places where individuals can rediscover their direct dependence on the planet through embodied experiences.  In his teaching and research Robbie is constantly experimenting with creative ways to engage students with places and landscapes that can help transform the global ecological crises into meaningful everyday actions that promote sustainability, as well as personal health and well-being.  Robbie advocates the need for integrating outdoor, indoor and online teaching to promote a variety of learning opportunities for contemporary human beings of all ages.

This means not just reimagining  green and blue outdoor spaces, but also reimagining our cities where most people live.  Robbie is often found in the streets of Edinburgh challenging his students to love the city’s concrete and built up places in the way they have come to love green and blue spaces. 

Robbie is co-author of Outdoor Learning Across the Curriculum: Theory and Guidelines for Practice (2023).


Robbie Nicol

Rosanna has an MSc in Environment & Development from the University of Edinburgh, and has worked for the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute and Keep Scotland Beautiful. She is passionate about sustainable and equitable food systems and access to the outdoors.
Alongside her work Rosanna has volunteered with various community gardens and initiatives, including the Glasgow-based group Boots and Beards. She also is the co-founder of Embra Collective, an online collective aiming to platform diverse voices in the environmental movement. In addition to working on the Shieling Project, Rosanna is a Research Assistant at the University of Strathclyde, and a Resources Development Officer for SEDA Land.

Kate Crawley

Family/ Kids Camp Tutor

Experiences & Education

Skills

Schools

Camps

Venue Hire