Susan d’Arcy
Monday November 28 2022, 16:00pm
When this 232-room grey-stone pile opened in the Roaring Twenties it was hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world”, and it continues to dazzle to this day. It is not so much a conventional hotel as a chameleon in a kilt, as it manages to be not just a Scottish baronial mansion for luxury loafing, but also a world-famous golf course, a wellness retreat, an epicurean experience, a romantic interlude, a family adventure, an all-action shooting and fishing base and even a trainspotter’s delight with its own railway station. The lobby shimmers in mossy tones, contemporary art graces the walls and service is friendly and always efficient. In the nicest possible sense, the staff are always encouraging you to take it outside where the Ochil Hills put the ahhh into R&R.
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Score 8/10
Whether your room is in the main house or the modern extension, Braid House, expect cloud-grey and baby-blue walls, pin-striped wallpapers and tweedy fabrics and velvets, with walnut sideboards, porcelain lamps and curios such as antique weighing scales and magnifying glasses all adding to the country casual ambience. Bathrooms come in clotted cream marble, with freestanding baths and luxurious Asprey toiletries. Braid House rooms tend to be blander architecturally but some have working fireplaces and fabulous views. The Country rooms in the main house are misleadingly named — they actually have limited views so there’s not much of the green and pleasant stuff on show.
Score 8/10
You will not go hungry. The main restaurant, the Strathearn, exudes Great Gatsby theatricality, with art-deco inspired petal-shaped lights, sweeping banquettes in powder blue and waiters who don’t need to go to the gym because they push magnificent silver trolleys, laden with temptations from steaks to crepes. You can tuck into crab spaghetti and Scottish border lamb chops at the Birnam, which zings with Italian-American attitude and there is the very grown-up gourmet pleasure of dinner at Andrew Fairlie, Scotland’s only two Michelin-starred restaurant. The breakfast buffet at the Strathearn takes up a space bigger than most hotels’ restaurants and is an extraordinary display of fresh fruits, cereals, cold cuts, pastries, cakes, savouries, eggs done every conceivable way and hot dishes as well as a champagne and bloody mary station. There’s a dramatic backlit whisky tower and garnet-red curved banquettes in the Century bar, and sofas in front of yawning open fires make you feel perfectly comfortable flapping out a newspaper and lingering.
Score 9/10
Just reading the options is exhausting. Of course, there is champion golf but you can also book guided hill walks, air-rifle and clay shooting, fishing, falconry, horse riding, cycling, archery, tennis, off-road driving, swimming in the three pools and estate lochs, the spa, gun-dog school, ferrets and zip wires.
Score 9/10
Auchterarder, which has some souvenir shops and tearooms, is 90 minutes’ by car from Edinburgh. Glenturret Distillery, Scotland’s oldest working distillery, is a 20-minute drive away. Stirling Castle and Drummond Castle Gardens, with an impressive Italianate parterre and copper beaches planted by Queen Victoria, are nearby too.
Price B&B doubles from £350
Restaurant mains from £15
Dog-friendly Y
Family-friendly Y
Accessible Y
Book a stay*
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