Alvie

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Alvie is a small Scottish crofting hamlet and highland estate on the south shore of Loch Alvie, in the Badenoch and Strathspey area of Inverness-shire, Highland. It lies inside Cairngorm National Park and is part of the Alvie and Dalraddy Estates, which stretch into the Monadhliath hills from the River Spey and overlook the Cairngorm mountains.

For hundreds of years Alvie was part of the Lordship of Badenoch, held by the Dukes of Gordon. In the 1800s it passed through several owners: the Macpherson-Grants of Ballindalloch; James Evan Baillie (the forerunner of Lord Burton of Dochfour); and Sir John Ramsden, who planted about 2,000 acres of moorland as forestry for timber and later moved to Ardverikie Estate.

In 1905 Sir Robert Whitehead bought Alvie, expanded the estate, and improved the deer stock; a deer fence he built around 1908 still marks the landscape. The estate was sold in 1923 to Lady Carnarvon, who started Balchurn as a model dairy farm and kept it going into the 1950s.

Alexander Williamson bought Alvie in 1927, mainly for its hunting and field sports, and added the nearby Dalraddy Estate in 1929. After Williamson’s death in 1930, the estates were managed by his family, and woodland was replanted after the wars. Gerald Williamson continued the family’s work, expanding farming on nearby farms.

In the 1960s and 70s, ownership shifted within the Williamson family. Dalraddy Estate was transferred to Jamie Williamson in 1983, and Alvie Farm became part of a limited partnership. After Fergus Williamson died, his widow transferred Alvie House and its policies to their eldest son Jamie in 1991. The estate later included ventures such as downhill skiing, a gliding club, and the Dalraddy Caravan Park.

The 2017–18 documentary Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits was filmed on the estate.