Sleep where Mary, Queen of Scots slept. Toast a pioneering aviator who never came home. Hole up where the Jacobites did. Three castle hotels in Scotland with stories worth the drive.
Castle hotels in Scotland are not hard to find. Ones where the history is specific, a little dramatic and still felt in the rooms are rarer.
These three came up in this week’s Shortlist. One is a single suite in a medieval tower, one is a grand Victorian hotel on the Ayrshire coast, and one is a family estate with cottages in the grounds. All three can be booked.
Neidpath Castle, Peebles: a queen’s bedroom above the Tweed
Neidpath is a 14th-century L-shaped tower on a ridge above a loop of the River Tweed, about a mile west of Peebles. Its walls are around eleven feet thick, and inside there’s a vaulted hall and a pit dungeon.
In August 1563, Mary, Queen of Scots stayed here on her way back from a tour of south-west Scotland. Her son, James VI, visited in 1587. The castle’s Hay owners were royalists, and in 1650 Neidpath held out against Cromwell’s army longer than any other stronghold south of the Forth, until cannon fire forced a surrender. Accounts of exactly how it fell differ.
Today the castle has one bedroom suite: Queen Mary’s Chamber, with an antique four-poster, a deep roll-top bath and an open fire. Guests get their own key to the castle, which makes it about as private as a historic stay in Scotland gets.
One suite, one castle, and the same view of the Tweed a queen had.
Glenapp Castle, Ballantrae: the aviator who never came home
Glenapp stands in its own estate just south of Ballantrae on the Ayrshire coast. It was designed by the Scottish Baronial architect David Bryce and finished in 1870 for James Hunter, the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire.
In 1917 it was bought by James Lyle Mackay, chairman of the P&O shipping line and later the first Earl of Inchcape. His daughter Elsie is the reason to come. She was a respected actress under the name Poppy Wyndham, designed interiors for P&O liners, and was a skilled stunt pilot.
On 13 March 1928, Elsie and Captain Walter Hinchliffe took off from RAF Cranwell, trying to become the first to fly the Atlantic east to west. They were never seen again. It was another five years before Amy Johnson became the first woman to complete the westward crossing. There is a stained-glass memorial to Elsie in Glenapp Church, and some say she still walks the castle.
After decades of decline, Glenapp was restored and opened as a hotel in 2000. It has around 17 bedrooms and suites, and gardens associated with Gertrude Jekyll.
Elsie wanted to be first across. Her castle is a fine place to raise a glass to her.
Fingask Castle, Perthshire: four centuries on the losing side
Fingask sits in a private glen in the Braes of the Carse, between Perth and Dundee, looking south over the Tay towards the hills of Fife. The castle is dated 1592, built around an older structure, and the Threipland family bought the estate in 1672.
The Threiplands were committed Jacobites, and it cost them. After the 1715 rising the estate was forfeited. In 1745 they backed Bonnie Prince Charlie, government troops badly damaged the castle, and David Threipland was killed at the Battle of Prestonpans. His brother Stuart, a physician to the prince, eventually bought Fingask back in 1783.
Today the Threiplands welcome guests in self-catering cottages and converted potting sheds around the estate, sleeping up to 70 in all. There’s a heated pool in summer, a tennis court and 250 acres of gardens and woods to explore.
Four centuries of backing the wrong side, and still here. That deserves a weekend.
Until next time
Scotland’s best castle stays aren’t always the biggest. Sometimes they’re a single room at the top of a tower, with a story nobody else in the building knows.
For another, read Alone in a 16th-century Scottish castle, my night at Fenton Tower, where James VI once hid from a rebel army. And for five more stories worth knowing, see The Shortlist.
