Douneside House
The feeling of a family home pervades this hotel in brimming gardens on the edge of the Cairngorms national park. More
Good Hotel Guide Review
The feeling of a family home pervades this hotel in brimming gardens on the edge of the Cairngorms national park. Bequeathed to the MacRobert Trust, the house was originally bought as a holiday retreat by Sir Alexander MacRobert, who transformed it in the Scottish Revival style. Lovely Edwardian interiors are filled with possessions and children’s portraits. Spacious bedrooms have period furnishings. More eclectic rooms are in cottages and apartments. There is a health club, a tennis court, children’s play park, and croquet on an infinity lawn. Trusted readers found their ground-floor apartment room ‘excellent for dogs, with a good drying porch and well-designed shower room’. Afternoon tea in the bar brought ‘tempting sweet flans’, while in the conservatory restaurant, David Butters’s use of local and home-grown ingredients, in such dishes as venison loin with poached brambles and beetroot jus, was ‘absolutely first rate – each course mouth-watering’. But ‘beware the muzak!’ Breakfast brings organic porridge with crystallised pistachios, lime honey and crème fraîche, peat-smoked haddock and a full vegan.
Hotel details
Address
Tarland
Aberdeenshire
AB34 4UL
Scotland
Telephone
01339 881230
Bedrooms
23. 9 in cottages, plus 4 apartments in Casa Memoria, 2 cottages suitable for disabled.
Open
all year.
Facilities
bar, wine bar, piano lounge, library, conservatory restaurant. in-room Smart TV (Freeview), wedding facilities, health centre (indoor pool, all-weather tennis court), 17-acre grounds, public areas wheelchair accessible, adapted toilet.
Background music
in bar and restaurant.
Children
all ages welcomed.
Dogs
allowed in cottages and apartments, not in main building.
Credit cards
MC, Visa.
Prices
per room B&B £174–£314. Set dinner £35–£45, tasting menu (Thurs–Sat) £80.
Other reviews
Good Hotel Guide articles about
Douneside House
- Sunday Post: 10 hotels for New Year in Scotland
- Scottish Field: Ten of the top family-friendly hotels in Scotland
- Scottish Field: 10 country house hotels and castles in Scotland
- Sunday Post: 10 of the best country house stays Scotland has to offer
- Scottish Field: Ten of the best hotels for golfers in Scotland
- The i: Ten of Britain’s best hotel gardens
- USA Today: 20 of Britain’s best hotels for walking
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