Venue Description

Moniack Mhor is Scotland's Creative Writing Centre Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre is a residential centre in the beautiful Scottish Highlands, just fourteen miles from the city of Inverness. Since our first course in 1993 Moniack Mhor has been running creative writing courses tutored by some of the finest authors in the UK and beyond.

Accessibility

Access to the building is via a gentle ramp and push doors. The kitchen and main room are downstairs, as is the accessible toilet and two bedrooms - one single, and one twin. The remaining bedrooms in the main building are upstairs and we do not have any disabled access to these rooms at the moment. There is a small IT room which is wheelchair inaccessible due to two steps. The other two buildings on site are "the cottage" and the straw bale building. The cottage hosts our poetry library downstairs and we may hold tutorials in this room. The cottage is accessible to smaller wheelchairs, but due to the constraints of the traditional building, it is not possible to access using a motorised wheelchair. The straw-bale building is about 30 meters from the main building, accessible by path, gently sloping in places. There are no steps, and the straw-bale building is accessible to motorised wheelchairs. There is a path around the garden which is designed with wheelchair access in mind. The surface is packed hard fine gravel, but due to the exposed nature of the centre, this is a constant upkeep task for the Moniack team.

Accessible Performances

We have a path between the main building and our straw-bale circular studio building where we often have workshops, tutorials and guest readings. The path is gently sloping, but we do our best to maintain the surface as smooth as we can. Where there is a participant present with difficulty in accessing the straw-bale building, we hold these in the main building.

Toilets

The accessible toilet is downstairs, next door to a single room and a twin room. Access is via a short corridor from the main room of the building. The sliding door has a turn lock inside. There is a shower with wet room floor ( which does not always drain well, but the team are happy to dry up until we improve the current floor design) The toilet is accessible with a powered wheelchair, but it may require a little manoeuvring to access from the corridor.

Staff

The Moniack Mhor team are all dedicated to providing access to the courses and writing retreats on offer to all, and always "go the extra mile" to remove barriers. We have all carried out Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Training, and always place the needs of participants on our courses and workshops first.

Assistance dog facilities

Assistance dog exercise facilities

Assistance dogs are very welcome at the centre. We have a large area of garden, fenced in from the surrounding agricultural land, and assistance dogs are free to roam in the garden area.