Approached by a private road, this ‘large, rambling but wonderful’ late Georgian mansion, in ‘magnificent grounds’, is owned and cherished by Susannah and Stuart Macpherson. Guide inspectors had ‘a real feeling of entering a warm and inviting place’, and found Victorian hunting paintings ‘very fitting’ in public rooms with original fireplaces and ornate plasterwork. A room at the back, with views across the gardens to the hills, had a thistle-patterned fabric pelmet and valance. Concerns over a ‘slightly old-fashioned’ bathroom have been addressed with a rolling programme of refurbishments – several have been upgraded over the last year. In the octagonal dining room, chef Garry Kenley sources local ingredients for such dishes as fillet steak, shallot purée, sautéed wild mushrooms and a choice of sauces. Not everyone is smitten by the old-fashioned charms (‘like stepping back in time’, says a detractor, meaning no compliment) and, yes, ‘It’s not perfect.’ But it is in many ways ‘a really lovely hotel’. The ‘fairy walk’ through the rhododendrons is ‘magical’. And how many hotels can boast of a Douglas fir planted in 1827 by David Douglas himself?