The former Procurator Fiscal office

This is a very unusual building for Tain - an arts and crafts building on Tower Street. Formerly the procurator fiscal office, it was damaged by fire at a certain point, and then renovated by the Highland Historic Buildings Trust. Obviously it has its own Canmore page. It is B listed.

After the renovation / saving of the building, it passed into private ownership and was last sold in October 2022. It was on sale when we were looking for a property, but we never looked inside as it was clearly too small. Initially, it was a sort of "curiosities" shop, but I never thought it would "take" and it didn't. I went in once, and virtually none the stuff for sale was from Scotland. A lot of it was French, which was where the owner had previously lived and had a shop. Consequently, it was quite popular with locals who are fed up of Scottish crafts, but not so much with visitors. For a while, the shop itself moved to an empty property on the High Street before closing completely a year ago, and the building seemed to lie empty for a while. It's now "reopened" in the sense that it is available for short let as a holiday property. This is perhaps a good option, providing the soundproofing is adequate as it is right next to a road junction. It's too small to live in, but you could imagine that as a short let for those on road trips, it might work quite well. Most of the short lets available on AirBnB in Tain seem to be former local authority houses up the hill from the centre, so this is a nice option.

Coincidentally, in looking at buildings and starting to size them up for my new #doorwaysoftain series, I noticed that another house that has been recently comprehensively renovated on Academy Street has obviously opened as a guesthouse. That is more competition for my fellow swimmer C, who runs Shandwick House with her husband. Anyway, that building will probably feature in due course.