The Meikleour Arms

On the Marquess of Lansdowne’s Meikleour estate, this Georgian coaching inn amid verdant woodland comes with fishing rights on the Tay. Driving north up the A93 you’ll pass the longest, tallest hedge on earth, planted in 1745 by an ancestor of Sam Mercer Nairne, who owns the dog-friendly hotel with his Bordeaux-born wife, Claire. A centuries-old Gallic-Scots alliance is celebrated in everything from room names to the cuisine. A reader, returning after several years, found it had ‘changed for the better out of all recognition’. Hotel bedrooms are individually styled, with marble bathrooms, chic paint finishes, maybe toile de Jouy wallpaper, complimentary sherry, Arran Aromatics toiletries. ‘I stayed in one of the stable cottages, a lovely conversion, built with anglers in mind, but excellently equipped,’ our reader writes. ‘Warm, comfortable, peaceful,’ 
another concurs. In the restaurant, estate-to-plate 
dishes with vegetables from the walled garden, and East Coast fish, include venison and chargrilled steaks, all lovely, but more variety would have been appreciated. ‘Excellent breakfast.’ (M K Webster, Christine and Philip Bright)