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World War Two secret agents' house put up for sale

Steven McKenzie
BBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter
Galbraith The house is of period design with a slate roof and cream-coloured walls. A gable end is covered in icy. It is set in a Highland landscape of rolling hills. Galbraith
Inverlair Lodge dates from the 18th Century but had a significant role during World War Two

A Highland house where "troublesome" secret agents were kept busy during World War Two has been put up for sale.

Inverlair Lodge was taken over in 1941 by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an army of saboteurs and guerrilla fighters formed to fight behind enemy lines.

Inverlair's residents were foreign nationals who had been unable to perform their duties but needed to be kept safe because of the dangerous secrets they knew about the Allied war effort.

Supervised by British soldiers, the agents were kept occupied with a range of tasks including mending boots and salvaging scrap metal from the surrounding countryside.

Estate agents Galbraith has put the 18th Century property on the market for offers over £1.3m.

Six-bedroom Inverlair Lodge, near Tulloch, about 20 miles (32km) from Fort William, was chosen because of its remote location.

During WW2 it was known as No. 6 Special Workshop School.

In interviews with the Imperial War Museum, Dundee-born Alfred Fyffe told how he was put in charge of Inverlair for 30 months.

He said the residents, who included Italians and Dutch, were supervised but not kept under armed guard and were even allowed to make trips into Fort William.

Mr Fyffe described the lodge as an "experiment" with agents of different nationalities living under one roof, and working on tasks designed to distract them from the secrets they knew.

One of their jobs was salvaging metal, including railway track, abandoned by British Aluminium which operated a smelter in Fort William.

Inverlair Lodge and similar SOE properties are said to have inspired the plot to 1960s TV drama The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan.

It is also thought that the lodge may contain part of the original Macdonell of Keppoch House, scene of an incident known as the Keppoch murder reprisals.

In the 17th Century seven MacDonalds of Inverlair were murdered in response to the murders two years earlier of Alexander and Ranald MacDonald of Keppoch.

Galbraith The house is of period design with a slate roof and cream-coloured walls. It is set in a Highland landscape of rolling hills. Trees surround the property.Galbraith
Inverlair Lodge fell into disrepair after WW2 but was restored in the 1970s

War-time prime minister Winston Churchill enthusiastically supported the formation of SOE, and ordered its agents to "set Europe ablaze".

Its history was an inspiration for film director Guy Ritchie's 2024 action-comedy The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

SOE was disbanded after the war and Inverlair Lodge was vacated and fell into disrepair. It was restored in the 1970s.

Lochaber was a key training area for Allied forces during WW2.

Achnacarry Castle, the ancestral home of the chiefs of Clan Cameron and about 15 miles (24km) north east of Fort William, was used as commando training base.

The elite troops were from Britain and the US as well as France, the Netherlands, Norway, former Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium.