Kinclune House and Estate is a family-owned and run Scottish Highland estate and wedding venue. We look forward to sharing our beautiful country house and private 800-acre estate with you and your loved ones. Rowan and Marguerite Osborne run Kinclune along with daughters, Virginia Osborne Antolovi, Dr Aylwin Pillai and, son, James. Aylwin and Virginia are keen environmentalists with a background in environmental law. Aylwin holds a PhD in Scottish land ownership and sustainability. Virginia runs our organic farm and Highland Pony Stud.
We’re not a traditional Highland estate. Our mission is to put environmental considerations at the heart of all our decisions. We manage Kinclune organically and holistically, incorporating elements of regenerative farming, conservation grazing, rewilding and rewetting across a mix of semi-natural meadows, mature woodlands, wader wetlands and wildlife ponds. As a result, Kinclune is bursting with life!
You can support our environmental work by booking a five-star group holiday, a wedding or an outdoor experience at Kinclune House and Estate today!
We are thrilled to have been selected as one of Scotland’s four Agritourism Monitor Farms. The three-year programme, funded by the Scottish Government, provides expert and peer group support, knowledge exchange, skills development and confidence building to agritourism and rural businesses across Scotland.
Winners of the Nature of Scotland ‘Food and Farming’ Award 2021, recognising the very best of Scottish nature conservation. The award stated: “Kinclune demonstrates that it is in the power of Scottish farmers to farm our way out of the biodiversity crisis by placing environmental and biodiversity considerations at the heart of management decisions”.
Our homebred stallion, Fandango na Dailach, was Overall Champion Highland Pony 2022. The Royal Highland Show is Scotland’s pre-eminent agricultural show and we have both shown and judged there for many years.
We have worked with the RSPB since 2020 on a programme of work including bird surveys, habitat improvement and creation, farm management changes and monitoring breeding success. We have really benefitted from their advice and support and we love to share what we have learned with our guests.
Proud members of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), Aylwin sits on the Scotland Steering Group. The NFFN aims to unite farmers with a sustainable outlook, encourage positive changes in policy and facilitate peer-to-peer learning, as well as lobbying government to ensure that protecting nature is embedded in the agricultural support system.
We absolutely love our waders. We have been recipients of the Working for Waders (WfW) Small Grant Award for wader habitat improvement and management and are a nest monitoring site for a Working for Waders / Nature Scot research project, enabling us to monitor legally protected nest sites and species together with the RSPB.
In 2022 the RSPB helped us secure AECS funding to bring together neighbouring farms and estates to establish a West Angus Wader Project group, collaboratively improving wader habitat and farmland management over an area spanning 10km. On Kinclune, we’re adding more wader scrapes, building ponds, planting hedges for wildlife and much more. Join one of our farm experiences to learn more about our farm conservation projects.
Our ponies are registered under the Highland Pony Society, which aims to protect and promote this Scottish native breed. Marguerite is a past President of the society and Virginia Osborne is a former Council member. Aylwin is a life-member of the society.
Nominated for Rare Breeds Survival Trust ‘Sustainable Farm of the Year 2022’. We breed native Scottish Highland ponies and Aberdeen Angus cattle, as well as Welsh Lleyn sheep and commercial Limousin cattle. Highland Ponies, despite their growing popularity, remain a rare breed and our ponies carry on rare and valuable bloodlines.
Farmers are the custodians of some of Scotland's most beautiful and important landscapes and we are proud to be part of Scottish Agritourism and Go Rural. We offer authentic farm stays, experiences and events on a working organic family farm and we're pleased to support other local agritourism businesses. To learn more visit Go Rural
Nature Scot is Scotland’s governmental nature agency, responsible for caring for and improving our natural environment. We are pleased to be part of the Nature Scot Biodiversity Audit Project which includes testing a prototype Biodiversity App on our farmland and habitats. Aylwin also sits on the External Advisory Group of Nature Scot’s ‘Farming with Nature’ programme as a representative for the Nature Friendly Farming Network.
