Laying the foundations for future sustainability
Fyvie Guide House Committee was awarded £5,958 from the Nadara Gordonstown Wind Farm Community Fund towards new flooring for the kitchen, dining room and craft room as part of wider renovations.
Fyvie Guide House Management Committee maintains and controls Fyvie Guide House, a residential activity centre – on behalf of Girlguiding Banff & Buchan and Girlguiding Gordon.
Originally built in 1879 as a cottage hospital and later used as an auxiliary hospital during the First World War, Fyvie Guide House has been run jointly by the two Girlguiding groups since 1967. It provides bunk accommodation for up to 25 people across six rooms, along with a sitting room, dining room, activity rooms, toilets and showers, plus extensive grounds for camping and outbuildings for equipment storage.
The House hosts a wide range of Girlguiding activities, including adult leader training weekends and residential holidays for Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, giving young people the chance to build skills such as teamwork, friendship, independence and responsible citizenship. It is also available to other youth groups, including Beavers, Cubs and National Trust volunteers, on a self-catering basis, and serves as the designated emergency evacuation accommodation for Fyvie Primary School.
The Project
In recent years, Fyvie Guide House had lost bookings to other Aberdeenshire facilities offering more up-to-date and larger indoor spaces. To address this, the Committee raised £36,000 from various sources to extend the kitchen and dining room and install a catering-standard kitchen, with the building work due to complete in April 2026.
However, the existing flooring in the kitchen extension, dining room and upstairs craft room was worn, torn and holed in places, and did not meet food hygiene or health and safety standards. This element of the wider renovation remained unfunded, putting the reopening of the House at risk.
The Committee applied for funding towards new plywood and vinyl flooring across three areas:
- Kitchen extension (5.4m x 5m)
- Dining room (9.5m x 4.2m)
- Upstairs craft room (6.4m x 4.5m)
The total project cost was £4,965, all of which was requested from the fund.
Outcome and Impact
Unexpected delays arose during the works: because the House had been empty and unheated since November 2025, a required damp-proof course layer took much longer than usual to dry before the floor could be screeded, and the upstairs flooring had to be brought in through a window as it was too long to fit up the stairs. Costs also rose from the original estimate once accurate measurements were taken from the completed extension, as more preparation and screeding work was needed where the new and old parts of the building met. Despite this, the flooring fitters were still able to complete the work in time for the House to reopen to its first booking.
All users of the Guide House now benefit from a smooth, slip-resistant, easy-to-clean floor in the kitchen and dining area, with matching new flooring upstairs. 109 people, including children, have benefited since the House reopened at the end of May 2026. Based on the yearly property audit and projected bookings and events (including an open day) through to the end of 2026, the Committee anticipates that over 700 people in total will have benefited from the improved facilities within the year.
Booking numbers for weekend lets have increased compared to previous years: as of the report, only three weekends remained available in the Guide House's calendar through to the end of December 2026, compared with 11 available weekends over the same period in 2025. The improved space has also attracted new midweek use from Girlguiding divisions and units holding meetings.
Feedback from Users
| “Fantastic kitchen space – met all our needs. Had everything we needed, items labelled and easy to find. Makes such a difference to the dining area also with extra space. Future-proofing the building for many years. Craft room: really nice space... great to all be in the one area.” |
| “We had a fab time at our sleepover and the renovations are great... we loved the new space, it looked great and it was so nice to have so much natural light coming in.” |
| “I was up at the Guide House last week and was amazed at the transformation. Well done – all your hard work has definitely paid off.” |
The Committee's social media following has also grown, with comments describing the renovation as a “transformation” and “fabulous”, and increased engagement with a video tour of the new extension and flooring.
Lasting Impact
The new flooring, alongside the wider extension and kitchen refurbishment, allows Fyvie Guide House to compete with other residential facilities across Aberdeenshire, Moray and Aberdeen City, securing its future as the only residential Girlguiding facility serving the Turriff, Fyvie, Rothienorman, Cuminestown and Banff area, and maintaining its role as emergency evacuation accommodation for the local school.
In June 2026, the Guide House will celebrate 60 years of joint operation by the two Girlguiding groups. The Committee expects that the improvements made possible by this project will help secure the building's future for the next 60 years, continuing to provide opportunities for guiding, scouting, other children's organisations and the wider Fyvie community.
Read more about the Nadara Gordonstown Wind Farm Community Fund - Fyvie & Rothienorman.