Brough Lodge

 Brough Lodge was built after 1818 when Arthur Nicholson acquired the land and previous house as settlement of a debt in 1805. His wanderings around Europe meant that the house was modeled in a continental style and not like a local house at all. This alone makes it unqique to Shetland. After the house was built the Nicholsons lived in the house until the 1970s when the last Nicholson left and from then on the house started to deteriorate. 

Since the 1990s there has been an exciting plan to restore the house and create a centre for local musical and craft cultures with visiting artists and residential course opportunities. This should also create much needed local employment opportunities as well.  This project, at the time of writing in 2012 is ongoing!

You can visit the house at the moment by simply walking up if you on Fetlar. It certainly is an unusual and unexpected sight. 

from RCAHMS

Distinctive and picturesque lodge-house complex in Castellated-Gothick style with Classical and Moorish detailing to screen walls. Predominantly harl-pointed random rubble walls with polished and droved sandstone ashlar dressings; brick dressings to N screen wall. Comprises symmetrical 2-storey house with single-storey wings flanking to E and W. Classical entrance gateway in screen wall to W; single-storey 2-bay pavilion outbuilding with 2-stage tower terminates wall to N; Brough Lodge and its ancillary structures are arguably Shetland's most unusual group of 19th century buildings. The idiosyncratic application of styles and details used throughout this group of buildings is highly representative of the romanticised late 18th and early 19th century interest in military and foreign architecture. The group is a prominent landmark in the Fetlar landscape occupying higher ground overlooking Colgrave Sound. Brough Lodge was built for Arthur Nicolson of Lochend who had bought most of Fetlar from the Bruce family. By claiming the inheritance of a distant relation, he became Sir Arthur Nicolson in 1826. (The Nicolson Coat of Arms is set in the courtyard wall). (ref Historic Scotland)