Hire a piece of history

Myres Castle is a nine-bedroom castle near Auchtermuchty, a few miles south of Perth. You hire it exclusively, and it might well be haunted. Dominic Roskrow spent a night there all alone.

It's not often you get the chance to sleep in a room which played host to Mary Queen of Scots. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Queen's Room at Myres Castle was used regularly by the monarch when she was a little girl.

Had I been choosing a room to stay in, this would have been my choice. No contest.

As it was my hosts picked it for me – and there was plenty of scope, because on the night I stayed I was the only resident in the nine room castle.

But none of the rooms would disappoint if you decided to hire the castle for you and 17 other people. For every room is stunningly decorated, and no two are alike.

Which provides the ideal starting point if you were to hire the castle in its entirety over a weekend or longer. You can happily spend your first hour traipsing from one room to the next and exploring what each has to offer; everything from modern rooms with tastefully erotic art and flat marble sinks to the historic, such as the aforementioned Queen's Room, large and sprawling and with a large quilted wedding blanket on the wall.

There are neat and relatively conventional bedrooms and plain quirky ones, including one decorated as if it were a striped marquee, the creases and folds running up to the ceiling. There's even a painted rip near the light switch and, in one corner, a painted mouse escaping through a hole.

Each and every one of the rooms has been composed with a great deal of love and care. Decades, or even centuries, of history have bes...

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• By : Dominic Roskrow
• In : Best of Scotland
• Issue : 13
• Page : 60
• Words : 832