Oh noes! The legendary Boleskine House, former residence of both infamous occultist Aleister Crowley and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, has today been gutted by fire.
The house, located beside Loch Ness, was reported as being on fire at 1.40pm, with fire crews working all afternoon to douse the flames.
Around 60 per cent of the building has already been destroyed but it was later established no-one was inside.
Two fire engines were initially sent to the scene, one from Foyers and another from Inverness.
Further pumps were later sent from Inverness and Beauly, along with a water carrier from Inverness, a pump from Dingwall and an incident support unit from Inverness.
Crews continued their efforts on the west wing of the building while firefighters in breathing apparatus are using four main jets to tackle the blaze.
Video of the fire can be found at the Press and Journal website.
Boleskine House has various dark mythologies surrounding it, as suited to a house located beside the home of ‘Nessie’:
Interestingly, at the site of what is arguably the world’s most famous monster, Crowley’s actions (which included black masses and wild orgies) led to some disturbing phenomena. In his autobiography, Crowley described how the spirits he summoned at Loch Ness got wildly out of hand, causing one housemaid to leave, and a workman to go mad. Crowley also insinuated that he was indirectly responsible for a local butcher accidentally severing an artery and bleeding to death. Crowley had allegedly written the names of demons on a bill from the butcher’s shop.
Across from Boleskine House is a graveyard with a reputation for strange activity, and which was established long before Crowley even set foot on the scene. One legend suggests a tunnel exists linking Boleskine and the graveyard, and that is said to be the haunt of a band of unholy witches.
While it now really makes no difference to the damage caused to this historic building, I’m hoping the fire wasn’t deliberately lit by a deranged individual in response to Boleskine House’s links with the occult.
For more about the high strangeness associated with Loch Ness and Boleskine House, see Nick Redfern’s article “What Lies Beneath” in Volume 2 (Amazon.com link) of our Darklore series.
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