This Scottish country-house hotel has had a refresh – but it needs a rethink
It’s all change since I last stayed here, eight years ago. Gone is the Duke of Roxburghe’s comforting sporting hotel, scented with whisky and woodsmoke, and full of tables piled with books, family photographs and portraits. In its place, a gleaming spa hotel, German-owned, Hyatt-affiliated, which could (were it not for its tartan carpets and the original whisky bar in the mansion) be anywhere.
But if any place is used to change, it is this – the estate is old enough that Bonnie Prince Charlie once stayed here. The 10th Duke of Roxburghe (whose ancestral home Floors Castle is close by at Kelso) converted the mansion into a hotel in 1982 and created an 18-hole championship golf course in 1997. Read the history and it’s hard to believe that anywhere could have burnt down and been rebuilt quite so many times over the centuries. The modern estate wing, housing a spa, gym, restaurant and rooms, is just one more iteration in a long history of transformation.
What was a golfing hotel with a distinctly Scottish flavour had become a golfing and spa hotel with a distinctly Hyatt-neutral flavour. Now, though, a third element has been introduced: families – a group rarely seen at the Roxburghe in the past. I was there with mine, our ages spanning from the terrible twos to the sedentary 70s.
A whopping 51 new one and two-bedroom cottages, built in the vernacular architecture of a typical Scottish village – stone walls, slate roofs, single storey – have just opened in the wooded grounds for guests who want to mix self-catering with hotel facilities, ideal for groups of golfers or families with children. It meant that my sons could hit the courses, my husband could fish (tuition is offered on the estate’s trout pond, as well as salmon, trout and grayling fishing on beats of the Tweed and Teviot), my daughter-in-law and I could have spa treatments and the grandchildren could spend time in the kids’ club and take part in a variety of activities.
Sound good? The plan, I’d say, is a fine one; its execution, on the other hand, needs a rethink.
Not yet saddled with pickiness about price, character or the quality of the food, Olive and Max had a high old time. Only when prevented from accompanying his dad on the golf course did Max, aged two, have cause for complaint, hurling himself on the lobby floor in front of bemused staff, not yet inured to juvenile guests, and yelling repeatedly “I want golf” while alarmingly clutching a golf ball like a grenade.
They were kept busy from morning to night, not just with twice-daily swimming sessions and spells in the cottage-turned-Kio House of Kids – which offers creative activities orchestrated by brilliant former Norland nanny Beth Hamar – but also with a falconry session and visits off-site to meet Highland cows in one direction and walk with alpacas (among breathtaking scenery) in another. Both outings were enchanting and for us, it was something of a relief to be out of the spa/golf bubble.
Back in the bubble, the well-stocked estate market shop opposite the kids’ club provided all we needed for breakfast, which is not offered at the hotel for cottage guests, though there’s a daily £25 voucher for shop purchases. Also not included: use of the busy spa, which is charged at £40 per adult and £20 per child. That’s £120 per day for a family of four to use the hotel pool, sauna and whirlpool, with a struggle to find a spare bed in the popular relaxation area.
It’s not worth it. And to be frank, our two-bedroom cottages aren’t worth a staggering low-season nightly starting rate of £674. They are undoubtedly spacious, comfortable and well equipped (though without a washing machine, so you either pay hotel fees for laundry or schlepp to a launderette in Kelso), but you have to love Hyatt-neutral to enjoy spending time in the bland interiors – about as far from an authentic Scottish cottage as the hotel is from Bonnie Prince Charlie. As for the pair of imposing prints of animals dressed in human clothes adorning the walls of every cottage, I am unfortunately allergic to such things.
The hotel’s restaurant in the new wing is a high spot: buzzing and rather glamorous. The food was so-so, except for the tempting buffet breakfast, vorboten to the cottage dwellers.
Heiton, Kelso, Roxburghshire TD5 8JZ (01573 450331; schlosshotel-roxburghe.com). Doubles from £333, including breakfast; one-bedroom cottages from £591; two-bedroom cottages from £674
