‘All change’ at Grantown as restaurant carriages pull out
It’s the end of an era at Grantown East, with the removal this weekend of the two eye-catching railway carriages which attracted so many to the Highland Heritage and Culture Centre.
Quietly and with no fanfare the former restaurant was gently lifted onto lorries and taken away.
The Strathy has asked the new owners for an update on what their plans are for the site which they acquired early last year.
As one local observer said today: “The beautiful little miniature steam railway is still there but we understand it will likely be removed.
“We understand the plan is to see a local version of the House of Bruar established there, although nothing has been announced yet.”
It was in May last year that we spoke to Rajbir Sawhney of London-based Elixir Distillers, who for an undisclosed sum had acquired the former visitor attraction, which had been the vision of Karen Blessington.
The entrepreneur had had dreams of transforming Grantown’s fortunes with a range of attractions including the restaurant and shopping stop, plus miniature steam railway and authentic Highland games arena.
The ideas had proved popular with many but had run out of time to get fully established, Ms Blessington said.
“Grantown East has been a personal passion since the project first started in 2015, so it is a devastating loss to me,” she had told the Strathy in 2023.
The attraction officially opened on November 2, 2018.
"Sadly, after a little more than four years trading it has become clear that Grantown East is not financially sustainable.”
Speaking exclusively to us last May, co-founder and director of Elixir Distillers Mr Sawhney said: “We need an understanding of just where the benefits are for the whole community and tourists.”
“It’s very early doors. We need to think about this constructively and see what is right for the area.
“There are a lot of distilleries within the Speyside range, some 50-plus and two thirds of the Scotch whisky distilleries are within that locality so it would be more a case of keeping all distillers on board and working with these relevant distillers.”
There was no timetable at that stage, he confirmed: “It’s too early. If I were to say X, Y and Z and it didn’t happen that way I’d be deceiving your readers.
But there was confidence in the new owners that the move would “most definitely be good for the local economy, most definitely good for encapsulating life skills and jobs for those, which I’m sure are much needed within the area.
“At the end of the day, Grantown East was a heritage centre, it was a cafe of some description so let’s see where we are with what we have. I need to get an understanding of the train carriages and how fit for purpose they are.”
Mr Sawhney has been contacted this week through his company and the Strathy will hopefully have more information on any planned developments shortly.
Carriage pictures courtesy of Sean Birss of Grantown, who posted: “It’s sad to see these go. They were a sort of landmark. When I said ‘Do you know the two train carriages outside Grantown?’ people always seemed to know where I was talking about.”
