By Nik Hunter

THERE are many that pay lip service to the phrase ‘hands on’ but Sarah Mack is the real deal as she determinedly brings Barra Castle into the 21st century, working with her husband on the project.

Former TV presenter Sarah readily admits that she didn’t realise what she was getting herself into when she agreed to marry her husband, farmer Dave Stephen.

“Farmers don’t move and if you fall in love with one you have to embrace their lifestyle. I was probably a bit lovestruck and naïve,” she recalls.

Fast-forward to the year 2000 and Dave and Sarah were living on the family farm on the outskirts of Inverurie in a two-bedroom house, with four boys under the age of five.

“It was a tough time to be a farmer,” she says.

“There was plenty of labour but not a lot of profit in the business. Fortunately, my father-in-law was good at projecting what may happen – he was quite ambitious, and he bought land. He sold the land for housing developments and that allowed him to buy more farms and bring them back into the family. Barra Hill, near Oldmeldrum, was one of them and Dave took on the running of it.”

The farm also included several stone buildings, one of which was Barra Castle which was tenanted. Says Sarah: “Completely out of the blue, my father-in-law brought us to the castle – we’d never been inside before – and said the tenant had died suddenly. Do you want to live here?

“It was dark, dank, wet – it was quite a sad building. I didn’t know. We didn’t have a big pot of money. I was a stay-at-home mum and the only other thing we’d started to do on the farm was to grow fruit. But Dave was very keen – it was a wonderful privilege and opportunity, but it wasn’t a home we had chosen so we could either spend money on this or we’d have to build ourselves a house.”

In 2008, the couple said yes and in 2013, after significant renovation, the family finally moved in. “We made the decision that if we were going to do it, we would do it well and that’s when I got the sense that I wanted to inject new life into it,” explains Sarah. “Over the years, it’s turned from our family home to being the core of our business – our figurehead is the castle.”

Although the castle was now in good working order, the rest of the landscape around it was not. “We were surrounded by broken walls and decrepit outbuildings,” she says. It was ripe for development we just didn’t see it at that stage. We probably had a few ideas that were brewing, and I was ready to contribute more as the kids were a bit older. However, I wasn’t the farmer’s wife that wanted to carry a bucket of feed up the hills for the cows!”

A life-changing trip to New Zealand visiting other farms and farmers inspired the next stage which Sarah was ready to embrace. “When we returned, we decided to the turn the old cart shed into a farm shop and that started the natural progression to grow more of our own fruit.”

Initially the farm shop was seasonal but the purchase of a state-of-the art ice-cream machine turned it into a year-round business including a cafeteria with the focus on seasonal and zero food miles. The shop now has four ice-cream machines which are used to mix Barra’s fruit with Mackie’s Ice Cream – and as result the shop has doubled in size.

Sarah was now well and truly on a mission and in 2018, The Barn @ Barra Castle, a purpose-designed and rather funky wedding venue opened, again inspired by a venue she discovered in a New Zealand magazine.

“After that, it made sense to turn another of the outbuildings into luxury accommodation for wedding guests,” says Sarah. “For me, it was all about creating revenue so that we could improve the whole site. So much of the work is relatively unseen such as rebuilding a wall or renewing the gates. I’d prefer the boys to ‘plough their own fields’ so to speak and if they circle back to the business with their own ideas, then that’s great.”

While the venue, the lodges, farm and farm shop spread the financial risk, the couple are constantly looking at potential opportunities. “People are the core of our business, and I am always striving to offer the best experience,” stresses Sarah. “We’re still ambitious for the business and in time we’d like to expand the shop and accommodation.

“It’s a stimulating life that we have and it’s a great life. Dave and I are a good blend. I love dealing with people and he’ll sit and listen – he’s a bit more measured, I’m more excitable.”

It’s a combination that works and thanks to Dave and Sarah’s hard work, this castle and farm has a promising future.

www.barracastle.co.uk