The following is a narration for the walking tour of the Macphail house and grounds. This guide is available in a pamphlet, or a cassette tape format at the Macphail house.

Homestead Tours
Self-guided tours facilitated by an exhibit will be available till mid-October.
1. Macphail House includes the restored "big" dining room, added by Macphail about 1911. With its large brick fireplace and lovely dining table, it was used for entertaining summer visitors. Up the back stairs is Macphail's restored study/bedroom. At the top of the stairs, you find the bedrooms in the main part of the house. The two small bedrooms on the east side have information on Macphail, and on the 140-acre property. Down the main stairs is the restaurant on the right, in the former parlour/music room. To the left is the present parlour, and toward the back of the house is the library, which was the "little" dining room in Macphail's time. Through the main dining room you exit through the back door, which at one time led to the summer kitchen and maids' quarters, actually a separate building once attached to the main house.

2. The barn is at the rear of the yard, behind a screening fence. Behind the barn there was once a potato storage building, used by Macphail and his brother when they were experimenting in seed potato development. Parts of the barn were added at different times, as late as 1908-1910. Dances were held in the barn in Macphail's time. His son Jeffrey's playhouse, mentioned in The Master's Wife, was located near the barn. A well house to the north and a restored carriage barn complete the outbuildings.

3. On the east side of the house is the bell which Macphail commissioned for Valleyfield church, to honour his father, grandfather, and elder brother, all called William Macphail. The bell cracked after a short time in service, and was replaced by the foundry which made it. The cracked bell is the one which reposes in the Macphail yard. The replacement bell is still in service, in Hillcrest United Church in Montague, whence the Valleyfield church was moved. The Latin inscription translates: "I call the living, I mourn the dead."

4. The English Oaks at the front of the house were planted by Andrew's father William, probably from stock brought to PEI by John Norton (1759-1830) of Brudenell.

5. Near the front door is Dorothy's Playhouse, built for Andrew's daughter early in the century. It had been moved to Orwell Corner, to Dorothy's summer home in 1929 for her children to play in. It was returned to this site in 1993.

6. The path from the main door leads to the original lane of the property, now a walkway. At the road entrance are the pillars, rescued by Macphail from McGill University. They first adorned the entrance to the MacDonald Engineering Building in Montreal. After the building burned in 1907, Macphail was given the pillars, which were shipped by rail to Uigg. Local workmen removed the original capitals, and set them up on either side of the entrance.

7. Across the road is the entrance to the first nature trail on the property. This trail follows the course of the Orwell River, passing under some very large white pine and hemlock trees. Macphail deliberately kept his old home as it had been when he was a child: no electricity, no running water, no telephone. The stream provided him and his guests with the amenity of a shower; he had a bath house constructed on the banks of the stream.

8. The first nature trail brings you back to the pillars at the entrance, and to the old lane back to the house. To the right of the house is the Native Shrub and Tree Nursery, with a wildlife garden in front. From here a second trail illustrates woodland species succession on the former farm fields. Fifty-year-old spruce trees have been thinned and under planted with hardwood and understorey shrubs. A rhododendron and azalea garden is being developed to complement this trail.

9. The third trail begins at the Uigg end of the property. Follow the road to the dam, the only remaining one of the three which once powered two grist mills and a lumber mill on this stretch of the river. Across the dam the trail enters the woods above the stream, and contains panels illustrating various species of woodland plants and animals in a 2 kilometer loop.