As a long-time fan of reality television, I am well familiar with the BBC series Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby about unusual or outstanding hotels around the world, now presented by Monica Galetti and Rob Rinder. Galetti, a famed chef, investigates the hotel kitchens, and Rinder takes on some flagship hotel job on-site to serve guests, thus gaining a better understanding of how the place works.
Now six seasons in, the series has featured luxury hotels all around the world, some of them in truly astonishing locations. A hotel on stilts on an island in Newfoundland, the Fogo Island Inn. The high altitude Gangtey Lodge in Bhutan. Our own Ashford Castle. The entire idioscyrantic list is on the BBC website, as are all the back episodes; I have envy-watched pretty much every one.
Lo, one day earlier this year, an invitation to Glenapp Castle in Ayrshire in Scotland landed into my inbox. Glenapp, the email from the hotel’s PR company said, had featured in season five of Amazing Hotels. I already knew this, because I had seen it. Initially I thought the invite might be a hoax. It was not.
Trivia fact: Glenapp is 30 kilometres from coastal Turnberry, where the US president owns a hotel and golf course, which we drive past after flying into Glasgow. Originally a private home owned by the Inchcape family, Glenapp Castle dates from 1870, and has been owned since 2015 by real estate investors Paul and Poppy Szkiler.
RM Block
[ ‘Heaven on earth’: One trip to Bologna and Sirmione is simply not enoughOpens in new window ]
There are 21 bedrooms, all different sizes and decorated with antique furniture. My double-height room has nine windows, a door to turret stairs, a four poster bed, and seating for about 15 people, between two sofas, assorted armchairs, and a rattan bench. Opening the blinds on all those huge windows on each morning of my stay takes about five minutes. I guess maids performed that task in the days when Glenapp was a private home. There is an option to call down and have morning tea or coffee delivered to your room. While filming, presenter Rob Rinder stayed in this very same vast room.
We arrive on a day of soft rain, and are offered a golf cart or shanks pony to get to the lunch venue. I’m sure someone would walk alongside us, holding an umbrella, if anyone asked. (There are 74 staff members looking after the occupants of 21 rooms.) Like many grand castle hotels, the diningroom is a very formal space. But the current owners have been developing the estate in different ways, and their latest enterprise is an additional restaurant, the Azalea, in the walled garden.
The walled garden looks romantic and beautiful, with tumbling flowers along the pathways, picturesque vegetable beds, fruit canes and walkways. (The polytunnels which supply much of the castle’s produce are out of sight in a different part of the estate.)
In the middle of the garden is a carefully restored heritage glasshouse and conservatory, where two different dining spaces have been created at either side of the building. Vines cover the walls, and the views out into the green and verdant gardens beyond are calming and peaceful. Guests can have Sunday lunch here, or choose to come for dinner instead of dining in the formal diningroom at the castle.
According to Glenapp’s manager, Jill Chalmers, the castle receives a considerable number of American tourists who previous stop was at Ballyfin House in Co Laois. They also get a significant number of visitors from Northern Ireland; the east coast of which you can see on a clear day from Ayrshire. The ports of Cairnryan and Stranraer are respectively 19 and 29 kilometres away from Glenapp, and the ferry crossings from Larne and Belfast are only a couple of hours.
The devout reality show fan in me is thrilled to discover that an episode of the long-running Real Housewives series – the Real Housewives of London – was recently filmed at the castle, and airs this autumn. I’ll lay a bet one of them was sleeping in “my” room.
Glenapp offers a staggering 70 activities within its 44 hectares (110 acres). There is everything from archery, falconry, cooking classes, fishing, croquet, and tennis. There are also the very Scottish options of shooting game birds (partridge and pheasant) and deer stalking. I do not shoot birds or go stalking deer, but do try an archery lesson, and while missing the bullseye and bystanding onlookers, I at least hit the board.
One of the most special activities is the opportunity to go out to sea. From all the west facing windows at the castle, you can see an island rising from the Firth of Clyde, its distinctive shape like the top of a rounded mountain, and bearing a fair resemblance to Croagh Patrick.
This is Ailsa Craig, 16 kilometres offshore, a small island no longer inhabited, but which still has evidence of past population in the form of ruined cottages, a lighthouse, castle, and some giant concrete foghorns. It’s now a bird sanctuary. It’s also famous for a very particular reason.
Ailsa Craig is composed of micro granite. To this day, the granite from this island is mined for curling stones; curling being one of the battier Olympic sports, where teams chase after a circular stone, frantically scrubbing the ice back and forth as they go. Apparently all competing teams use curling stones cut from stone quarried from this island. These curling stones are everywhere around the Glenapp estate, used to hold doors open. There’s a trivia question for your next pub quiz: where do Olympic curling stones come from?
Glenapp has a couple of boats moored at Garvin’s marina, a small town an hour’s drive away. We board the boat for an expedition to Ailsa Craig; an energetic boat crossing that eventually sends most guests out on deck inside from the flumes and sea spray. I stay outside for the entire crossing, exhilarated by the view, the salt air, the speed of the boat crossing the Firth of Clyde on a rare Scottish day of blue skies and sunshine that is actually hot.
At the ramshackle pier, two crew members get off, carrying cool boxes. The rest of us go on to circumnavigate the island, the skipper pointing out bird species. A cliff wall of nesting gannets awes us: there must be thousands of birds perched on this vertical place. Darting puffins skitter past the boat at intervals. There are also guillemots, fulmars, and cormorants.
By the time we have circumnavigated the island and arrived back at the pier, there is a surprise awaiting us on the stony beach. A table is laid with white linen, crystal glasses, and white china from Glenapp. Tartan blankets are folded on the back of each camping chair. A second table is laid with salads, charcuterie, sandwiches, and little cakes. This is by miles the fanciest beach picnic I have ever had, and not a bag of Tayto in sight. “Would anyone care for a glass of champagne?” Funny enough, we all do.
We picnic and drink champagne under the hot sun, watching seals surface to curiously check out the rare visitors. Seagulls stand sentry at intervals along the stony beach to protect their day-old chicks; tiny flightless birds with downy black spots wobbling over the stones to hide behind their mothers. It truly is one of those experiences that you know will stay with you for a long time.
The Real Housewives of London also had a picnic here, but I bet they were too busy showing off and fighting among themselves to appreciate this glorious place as we do, on this beautiful summer day.
Rosita Boland was a guest of Glenapp Castle. The Autumn Gold package including two nights B&B with a three-course dinner is approximately €408 per night for two people. glenappcastle.com
