Hello, let me tell you all about the Ben Loyal Hotel in Tongue, Sutherland. My name is Elaine Lewis and along with my husband Paul we both own and manage the hotel. We have a small but very friendly and helpful staff who makes the task so much easier. Firstly, however I will tell you a little bit about Tongue, or Tunga as it is in Gaelic. That will whet your appetite for the area.

Tongue is on the very north coast of Scotland, almost in the middle. It is a small crofting community of some 250 souls spread out over quite a large area. Don’t be mislead by the size of the dot on the map, we are not a town! It’s a big dot because Tongue is at a point where the roads south, east and west all meet. There is no road north yet as Iceland would be the next stop! As I said we are a crofting community, where people are outnumbered by just about everything else but especially sheep. Mind you there are many other animals to be found in the area. Deer in abundance, some eagles and other smaller birds of prey, sea birds and waders, songbirds and otters in the Kyle of Tongue. The area is also well known for its brown trout in the lochs and sea trout in the Kyle and there are a few salmon rivers near by.

View of Ben Loyal

The hotel is surrounded by some of the most spectacular scenery in Scotland. To quote one guest who said while eating his dinner in the restaurant it was ‘probably the best view in Europe’. And why, because we sit on a rise above the Kyle of Tongue looking out over the hill-line of An Garbh Chnoc. Beyond this rises the summit of Ben Hope the most northerly Munro in Scotland. To your left, you will see Ben Loyal, with its long crenellated ridgeline, which is also known, as the ‘Queen of Scottish Mountains’. On a sunny day, The Kyle of Tongue has beautiful white sand and Caribbean blue water. Only the palm trees are lacking but then we do have one in my chef’s garden. It’s the most northerly palm tree in the world!

Tongue has been inhabited for thousands of years. At the end of the causeway there is a stone age shell midden, on the side of Loch Hakel there are the ring and cup stones (no one is to sure what they were for!) and around at Kinloch a broch (old round fortification) which our son, Jamie loves because it has ‘downstairs’. However, our most apparent historical building is Castle Varrich that sits atop An Garbh. It is an old fortified tower of uncertain vintage but probably dates back to between the 11^th Century and 14^th Century. It is thought to be a Viking lookout (presumably locals looking out for the Vikings) or an old Clan MacKay stronghold. Yes we are right in the heart of Clan MacKay country. Tongue House being the ancient clan seat but is now lived in by the Countess of Sutherland whose ancestors acquired the MacKay lands through battle and eventually by purchase. Sounds good doesn’t it?

So now, I had better tell you about the hotel. As I said before its family run. We only have 11 en-suite bedrooms (most with aforementioned views), a residents lounge and restaurant (both with the views) and a lounge bar for those who are more interested in our selection of fine malts and Tennents than the scenery.

On arrival, you will be met in reception and after booking in will be shown the ‘policies’ as we say in some parts of Scotland. In other words we will tell you where everything is, what time meals are served and all the other things that make a stay more comfortable. You will then be shown to your room. Let me be quite honest they are not necessarily the biggest rooms in any hotel you have ever stayed in. The hotel grew organically from two old stone cottages which date back over 100 years and associated outhouses, with the last addition being done in the 1960’s, when people must have been smaller! However there is plenty of room to swing the proverbial cat and many of our guests stay for up to 10 days and are quite comfortable. In fact some of our guests have been coming here for over 50 years (a little before my time but they still keep coming back).

The rooms are all furnished in pine and decorated to a simple but high standard. All but two of the bedrooms have baths with shower over. The other two rooms have electric shower units.

I hope you like children (actually child there is only one, our nine year old son – who has been a welcome playmate for many young children who come to stay. He takes them out and introduces them to other children in Tongue and to the delights of the playpark or going down to Rhian Burn to get very wet!). There has been many a parent who has been pleased to be relieved of their child for a couple of hours so that they can go and do some serious sightseeing. Our son is often around and with him goes our dog, Jasper. He’s a white cocker spaniel and a friend to everyone. His idea of bliss is when a guest offers to take him for a walk, but preferably not up one of the mountains as that requires far too much effort on his part. Then of course there is Beanie and Danny our two black cats. They only come in occasionally to the residents lounge because they love lying on the windowsills to bask in the afternoon sun. Non children and animal lovers need not worry however because all of the above entourage actually live in our cottage next to the hotel and not actually on the premises!

Next to having a comfortable room food is often very high on anyone’s holiday agenda. Rest assured you will be well fed at the Ben Loyal. We have two chefs. The chef with the palm tree does all our food for the bar. It is home cooked on the premises and comes in very generous portions, very necessary if you have spent all day climbing or walking up and down the side of a loch trying to catch Sutherland’s famous fighting brown trout or brownies as they are known.

Liz does all the cooking for the restaurant, which has an AA Rosette and 2 RAC Dining Awards due to her efforts. She sources most of the produce as locally as possible and often includes wild boar from Durness ( just round the coast), venison from local estates. Guest can pre-order lobster, crabs, Eriboll prawns (more the size of langoustine, the biggest Hughie ever caught was ½ pound!) and of course, the famous Kyle of Tongue oysters. I have often walked through the restaurant with a plastic bag full of shellfish that still have the seawater dripping from them, to give to chef to cook for a guest. The author of a well know Scottish travel book had the following to say about our food, I quote ‘ Elaine and Paul are serious about the food and this is now one of the best places to eat along the whole north coast.

All our staff lives locally and spend time during serving dinner chatting to the guests about their day and passing on snippets of local information and for the regular guest catching them up on the local gossip and what’s happened since the last time they were in the village. There is no such thing as fast food in our restaurant our guests sit there and enjoy their meal and the scenery at the same time. I would say that service was ‘sedate’ to ‘laid back’ and often hilarious like the time Malcolm was serving a fresh lobster that started to slip off the plate. He performed a wonderful juggling act but unfortunately, the lobster still took a nosedive to the floor. Fortunately the diner took it in good part and enjoyed Eriboll prawns instead.

I usually go into the restaurant in the evening, chat with the guests, and find out how things have gone for them during the day. It is the closest you will get to a cabaret in Tongue. The favourite question from first timers is ‘What do you do in the winter?’ Much as I would like to say that we hibernate in fact quite the opposite is the truth. In the winter we find time to take part in all the activities that spring up in the village over the winter when the majority of the tourists have gone south and the locals have the time to get involved with their own lives again. I go to Gaelic classes ( to try, unsuccessfully I must say, to keep up with our son who learns Gaelic as his first language at school) and my art classes which keep me sane. Paul usually disappears behind a book at night but during the day gets on with all the jobs around the hotel that can’t be done during the season.

Anyway on to the bar. What can I say? Well it’s warm and comfortable and Simon, our young barman, will look after you very well. We have a fair selection of Tennants draught beer namely 80/- and lager and also Guinness. Bottled beers run to Becks, Grolsh, Lowenbrau, Budweiser (both American and Czech), Bellhaven 80/- and Pale Ale. We have a good selection of the designer drinks like Smirnoff Ice, Breezers and of course soft drinks. Occasionally we will have live music and, especially in the winter, the Karaoke machine comes out. We don’t take it very seriously and aim to have fun. So far we haven’t found any one who is a likely candidate for ‘Stars in their Eyes’. Again in the winter there is a pub quiz once a fortnight which is hotly contested by local teams. Our residents are welcome to take part and sometimes sweep the board much to the consternation of our regulars.

So the basic facts are that we are a 3 Star Scottish Tourist Board, 2 Star AA/RAC establishment with an AA Rosette and 2 RAC Dining Awards, Ashley Courtney Highly Recommended and a member of Signpost. We have 11 en-suite bedrooms. Sometimes Paul and I feel like Basil and Sybil but we try hard to right all wrongs without to much fuss and we and all our staff do our very best to make your stay most enjoyable.