The Ceilidh Place

The Ceilidh Place is one of the few Highland addresses where the establishment’s reputation outruns the building. The MacKenzie family bought the converted boat-shed on West Argyle Street in 1970 and turned it over the following decades into the multi-room hotel, restaurant, bar, bookshop, gallery and live-music venue that anchors the centre of Ullapool’s cultural life. Robert Urquhart founded it; Jean Urquhart took it on; the family has held it through three generations now.

The footprint is unusual. The hotel itself is thirteen rooms across two adjoining buildings, the main house on West Argyle Street and the bunkhouse-style “Clubhouse” annex across the road, which carries cheaper bunk-style rooms for walkers, students and the touring music acts. The downstairs bar is the public room with the working bookshop along one wall, Scottish-interest, poetry and a strong music section, and the dining room runs through the back. The performance space is the parlour at the front, where the regular ceilidh-and-folk programme runs year-round.

The kitchen is a long-standing Slow Food advocate and leans on the west-coast suppliers, Lochinver white fish, Loch Broom shellfish, named-croft Highland meat. The bar carries a substantial Scottish whisky and beer list. The bookshop’s hours overlap with the bar so the room reads as a single working space across the day.

Pitched between cultural venue and hotel: visitors going for the music end up staying; visitors going for the room end up at the music. Current rates, gig listings and dining at the Ceilidh Place website.