Logie House is a white harled house in the Scots Baronial style. It originates from the seventeenth century since when it has grown and evolved several times. Similarly the garden has changed over the centuries.  In the early twentieth century there was a formal flower garden with a small private golf course on the big lawn and on the slopes down towards the river.  Changes were made, the greatest of which was in 2009 when the burn was opened and the woodland planting was extended allowing for the introduction of many interesting and unusual plants.

Logie was originally owned by the Cummings but has changed hands through several families since the 1600s. It is believed – but not yet 100% confirmed! – that Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first Director General of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) lived at Logie at some point in the early twentieth century. Mansfield Cumming was originally Mansfield Smith and when he married Leslie Cumming (who owned Logie) he took her surname.

The current Logie family starts with Alexander Grant who bought the estate in 1924 and it is now home to the sixth generation of his descendants. Alexander Grant was the son of a railwayman from the nearby town of Forres; he was an excellent baker and shrewd businessman who worked his way up through McVitie & Price and is known as the developer of the digestive biscuit.

After buying Logie in 1924 (in the same year that he was created a Baronet), Sir Alexander renovated Logie House and built the sandstone farm buildings that house the shops and café today. Sir Alexander made some significant internal changes to the house, such as moving the main staircase from one side of the house to the other so that he could enjoy the view of the river on his way downstairs each morning.

History of Logie Steading Visitor Centre

The traditional sandstone steading was built as a Model Farm by Sir Alexander in 1926.  His grandson, Sandy Laing, who inherited the estate in 1947, farmed part of the estate in hand and milked a herd of Ayrshire cows in the farm buildings until 1983.  After the cows were sold the buildings became redundant. In 1991, Sir Alexander’s great-grandson Alasdair and his wife Panny, with financial assistance from HIDB, developed the steading into workshops. The steading kept evolving and over the next 20 years, the River Findhorn Heritage Centre opened, the playground was built, river walks developed, there have been open air theatre performances, and new businesses have opened. Strange to think of the cows wintering where the café is today!

After Sir Alexander’s death, his son, Sir Robert, started work on the ‘Big Garage’, the castellated building adjacent to the model farm; originally designed for eight Rolls Royces with accommodation above for a chauffeur and visiting chauffeurs it was never completed due to the outbreak of WWII.  The original plans show a steeply angled roof; the completed building would have dwarfed the farm buildings.  Unlike the steading, it is listed. In 2012 the increasing number of visitors to Logie Steading meant that it seemed to be the right time to develop the Big Garage – which had been mothballed since before the war. Today in the Big Garage you will find Giles Pearson’s antiques restoration workshop, the Farm & Garden Shop, The Board Room (timber showroom) and Logie Whisky & Wine.

The Home Farm now comprises the land immediately around Logie House and Steading, and is home to the Logie herd of Longhorn Cattle.  Winners of many prizes across the UK, they are raised in a traditional way, living outside all year round.  Beef from the herd – with an unmistakable old fashioned taste – is sold in the Farm & Garden Shop

Aside from the Steading and Home Farm, there are a number of other enterprises supported across the estate. Farming, forestry, energy generation, environmental and community projects, housing, and fishing are a few. The latest of which is Logie Timber, a full circle timber business with a sawmill here on the estate – on the site of the historic estate sawmill – set up in 2017 as a partnership between Mark Councill and Alec Laing (eldest child of Alasdair and Panny, Sir Alexander Grant’s great-great-grandson).

Logie is very much a family estate. From Panny and Alasdair down to their grandchildren, we are three generations of Sir Alexander’s descendants here at Logie today.