Cluny Hill has played a central role in the history of our Community.

It was the practical training ground for our four founders 1957-62, and came into the ownership of the Findhorn Foundation in 1975.

Since then it has served as a campus for the living education programmes for which the Community has become internationally renowned, attracting thousands of visitors a year. That is, until Cluny closed its doors to guests on the 23rd September 2023. As we now enter into a phase of re-envisioning, this Topic offers many different perspectives to honour Cluny Hill and to contribute to the manifesting of the perfect future for this beloved community place which feels like a spiritual home to so many of us.

Cluny Hill also sits in a sacred landscape, the sense of which has been experienced by many, possibly for centuries if not millennia. It certainly spoke to the founders of the Cluny Hill Hydropathic Establishment when they built it in 1863-65.

In this synopsis we are offering a section for each of the following aspects:

The Building

Cluny Hill was built in 1863-65 as a hydropathic establishment. A Guide to Moray, published in 1868, described the hydro in glowing terms. Read more in Historic Hospitals – An Architectural Gazetteer.

During the first World War the military took over the building and billeted soldiers there. At the end of the war it returned to being a hydro and in 1937 it was turned into a Hotel.

When Peter Caddy took over the management in 1957 it was a 3 Star hotel accommodating many coach parties travelling around Scotland. With all the improvements brought by Peter Caddy and his team, it was awarded a 4th star in 1961. (See The Living Record – Cluny Hill Hotel 1957-62)

For the Summer season of 1962 Peter and his staff were transferred to the Trossachs Hotel in Stirlingshire, and he was fired as hotel manager thereafter. The hotel situation at Cluny Hill deteriorated gradually over the years until it was quite run down by 1975. Changed legal requirements for hotels made it unprofitable to continue to run it as a hotel and the owners sold it for £60,000 to the Findhorn Foundation with the condition that the coach tours for the season 1976 were accommodated to the expected standard. (See The Living Record – Cluny Chronicles 1975-78)

Eileen’s guidance had always reassured her that they would return to Cluny Hill, however she couldn’t have expected that it would take 13 years and that by then it would be a community that took on the building, rather than Peter running it as a hotel manager.

The purchase of Cluny resulted in a frantic episode of renovations over the Winter 1975/6 and a complex operation in 1976. Community members had their vegetarian breakfast in the Dining Room first thing in the morning, then they cleared it all up before serving the whole works of a full Scottish breakfast to the guests of each coach party.

Stan Stanfield was a stalwart Cluny member from the very beginning. He has provided us with many different tales of that amazing building. Stan’s Tour of Cluny was written down in 1986.

We have two slideshows to show the magnificence of the building:
1) Cluny Hill – Early days impressions – a slideshow of 100+ photos from the Findhorn Foundation Archive.
2) More Recent Cluny Days – Mark Richards collated images from the last 5 years

Being in Cluny – Recollections

Cluny Hill is a very special place in the hearts of many as, over the decades, thousands of guests stayed there and hundreds of Community members lived and worked there. We have collated many stories of recollecting Cluny under the tag ‘Cluny Hill’, so that you can browse to your heart’s content. We hope that this will inspire YOU to contribute your own stories to our collective autobiography.

There are individual personal accounts, the stories which were published in the 50th Birthday Book, Spirit of the Future, as well as the many posts by Stan Stanfield which you can find listed in his profile. We have the gift of four precious scrapbooks from one guest who returned every Summer between 1981 and 1984. These posts give a precious insight in the guest experience at Cluny at that time.

Sacred Landscape

Peter and Eileen Caddy, Dorothy Maclean and Lena Lamont, the founders of the Community, were deeply connected with the powerful energies of the landscape. Their work in the garden was consciously putting light into the ground with every cut of the spade. It was not only to improve the quality of the hotel but to anchor Love and Light deeply in the grounds.

The hill behind the hotel was recognised as a ‘power point’. It played an important role for the founders at crucial points, for instance when Peter was fired from his job as hotel manager, and during a ‘cosmic event’ on Christmas Eve 1967.  At a time when the world was on the cusp of potential destruction, the group had psychic connections with extraterrestrial beings. The hill was perceived as a landing site for space brothers to rescue them. The autobiographies of the founders, as well as ROC’s, make fascinating reading of those connections.

Later on Community member Marko Pogacnik developed acute sensitivities to the extent and nature of the sacred landscape both locally and its connections with other sites in Britain and Europe. He described the importance of the 7 hills of Cluny, as well as the deep hollow in the centre. He connected each hill with one of the planets.

Marko Cluny hills map 1999

Marko Cluny hills map 1999

Timeline – including extracts from our Community Timeline

1863-65
Construction of Cluny Hill Hydropathic Establishment to designs by A. W. Bissett
1896-97
A wing was added to the west by John Forrest
1905-07
further additions were carried out in by Ross & Macbeth
During WWI
Cluny was taken over by the military for billeting troops
1918
Return to being a hydropathic establishment
1937
Cluny Hill Hotel was opened
1957
Peter hired as manager of Cluny Hill Hotel, Forres; he, Eileen & Dorothy move there
Lena Lamont joins Peter, Eileen & Dorothy at Cluny
“Heavenly Hotel” newspaper articles about Cluny
1959
Peter and staff landscape the gardens at Cluny Hill
1961
Cluny Hill Hotel is awarded a fourth star, fulfilling the promise of Eileen’s guidance
1967
Peter, Eileen & Joanie go to Cluny Hill power point, Christmas Eve, ‘cosmic’ inner event
1975
Purchase of Cluny Hill Hotel, November
1976
Cluny is refurbished
First educational programmes at Cluny
Bookshop opens in Cluny
1977
Tennis Pavilion at Cluny is refurbished
1978
First Game Of Transformation, then called The Game of Life, is played at Cluny
1988
Two meeting rooms created in Tennis Pavilion at Cluny
2000-01
Cluny is rewired
2021
During Covid pandemic, Cluny got ‘mothballed’ with all but 4 members either moving to The Park, or being made redundant
Neils Paulsen repainted many of the common areas
2022
Cluny re-opens to guests
2023
All Foundation operations were concentrated on Cluny in February in an attempt to become financially sustainable
The Findhorn Foundations suspended all educational activities, and Cluny closed its doors to the public (23rd September)

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This Topic post was compiled by Cornelia Featherstone with a lot of help from other COIF Core Team members: big thanks to Keith Armstrong for finding so many gems in the Findhorn Foundation Online Archive, to Sylvia Robertson for scanning lots of documents, and editing support, to Richard Elen for the Early Days Slideshow and lots of technical support. Also a big thank you to Stan Stanfield for writing down so many of his Cluny stories and to Mark Richards for the More Recent Days slideshow video. And of course as ever, deep gratitude to the Findhorn Foundation for all the material from their Archive.