12-07-2025
Former ‘hippy' hotel is sold to Saudi businessman
For half a century its guests — derided as 'hippies' — came in search of spiritual enlightenment and inner peace.
The Cluny Hill hotel, on a slope above the town of Forres in Moray, served as a retreat and learning centre for the Findhorn Foundation (FF), Scotland's biggest and best-known alternative lifestyle charity.
With its faded Victorian glamour, the 76-room former spa was once dubbed 'the Vatican of the New Age'.
The building, first opened as a 'hydropathic establishment' in 1876, is now to be returned to its original purpose after Abdullah Alshiddi, a 27-year-old Saudi hotelier, bought the property as the FF winds up its educational work.
The estate agent Christie & Co confirmed the sale of the building, which comes with its own woodlands.
