Oliver & Laura

Hello

We are Laura and Oliver Chilton, and along with our children Archie and Nellie, we are the Chilton family. We love old buildings, walks and whisky. We both work in the Whisky industry, though Laura also has a range of other interests that keep her busy through her company – Laura Chilton Heritage Consultancy.

We both visited Scotland regularly as children on family holidays and met through a shared love of Scotch whisky. Today, we spend as much time in Scotland for work as we do for pleasure, with Oliver being a blender for Elixir Distillers, owners of Tormore Distillery in Speyside and Portintruan Distillery on Islay, while Laura does research for a variety of different Scotch Whisky companies as a freelance heritage consultant. 

In 2022, we started our search for a home in Speyside so we could spend more time as a family, get closer to a community who had embraced us and escape the southeast of England. We also wanted our children to be closer to the countryside and experience the changes of the seasons, in a similar way to how Laura had growing up on her family’s farm in Northamptonshire. 

After failing in the search for our perfect house, we decided we would be better off looking at building. As Laura had spent the first part of her career recording and caring for some of the UKs most significant historic buildings, it had always been our dream to rescue one of our own. 

In the summer of 2023, we found The Knock and with a little help from our friends, we purchased it on 10th November 2023.