Bed and breakfast availability
Lossiemouth b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Lossiemouth and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Lossiemouth, Moray. This holiday resort at the mouth of the River Lossie, was once most widely known as the birthplace and home of James Ramsay MacDonald, the Scot who became the United Kingdom's first Labour Prime Minister.The Royal Naval Air Station, H.M.S. Fulmar, which, with the Royal Air Force base at Kinloss, has brought much business to this coast as has its holiday trade — limited only by its capacity to house the incomers lured by its great sandy beaches, luxury hotels, caravan sites, beach chalets, and golf.

Lossiemouth was once an important fishing port but this industry has declined. A Lossiemouth fisherman built and designed the first Zulu boat Nonesuch in 1879. That was the initial step in the revolution in the design of fishing-craft. Lossiemouth also pioneered, through Peter Smith and others, the steam-drifter in the great age of the herring. Then in 1921, after a disastrous herring season due to a coal strike, Lossiemouth men first introduced the Danish seine net into this country, and the Campbells and Thomsons proved that it could open up a new era of prosperity.

The business life of Lossiemouth is now centred in Branderburgh on its cliff-top. But down below the cliff the old sea-town with its quaint market cross jostles large areas of new housing. Here at No. 1 Gregory Place, in a “backstair room”, James Ramsay MacDonald was born in 1886. The two-roomed but-and-ben, then thatched and backing on to the railway, has since been marked by a plaque of dressed Clasach sandstone from Hopem an. Ramsay's first school was a little Free Church General Assembly School known as “Robbie Codlin's”, after a dominie who used to urge his charges when reading, “Open your mouth wide, just like a codlin'.” Ramsay certainly learned the art. He then went on to Drainie Parish School, which closed in 1955 because of the danger from aircraft of the Royal Naval Air Station. The Education Committee presented to the late Prime Minister's family an old teacher's desk from this place where he not only studied but taught as a pupil-teacher.

The presence of several Service airfields somewhat restricts exploration in the immediate neighbourhood of Lossiemouth, but, providing you keep to the regulations designed to prevent obstacles to low-flying aircraft, there is nothing of interest to which access is barred. In particular there are two buildings of great architectural and historical significance in the area.

Innes House, 4 miles South East of Lossiemouth, was designed by William Aitoun, master mason of Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh, and built by Sir Robert Innes of that Ilk between 1640 and 1653. It is without doubt the handsomest 17^th century mansion in the North of Scotland. While the general form is the old L-plan, with the staircase set in the re-entrant angle but placed in a fine square turret, the details and decoration of the windows and chimneys closely resemble that of Heriot's Hospital. Additions forming a courtyard to the North were added early in this century for the present owners, the Tennants.

Some 6 miles South South East of Lossiemouth, and about 3 miles East of Elgin to the South of the road to Fochabers, is Coxton Tower, an architectural anachronism that is yet the most perfect example of its type surviving in Scotland. Although built in the early 17^th century, it adheres to the style of the great tower-houses of over a century earlier. With corner turrets at opposite angles and an open bartizan at one of the other angles, it is a compact block of four storeys, all vaulted and with the vaults set at right angles to one another on alternate floors for strength. The stone-slab roof rests directly on the uppermost vault, so that the building is completely fireproof. It has been kept in perfect repair.

Nearby towns: Buckie, Burghead, Elgin, Forres

Nearby villages: Alves, Auchenhalrig, Bogmoor, Cummingston, Dipple, Duffus, Fochabers, Fogwatt, Garmouth, Hopeman, Inchberry, Kingston, Lhanbryde, Longmorn, Mill of Tynet, Mosstodloch, Nether Dallachy, Ordiquish, Spey Bay, Upper Dallachy, Urquhart

Have you decided to visit Lossiemouth or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Lossiemouth bed and breakfast (a Lossiemouth B&B or Lossiemouth b and b)
• a Lossiemouth guesthouse
• a Lossiemouth hotel (or motel)
• a Lossiemouth self-catering establishment, or
• other Lossiemouth accommodation

Accommodation in Lossiemouth:

Find availability in a Lossiemouth bed and breakfast, also known as B&B or b and b, guesthouse, small hotel, self-catering or other accommodation.