A labour of love

Castle Venlaw is a fairytale hotel a few miles south of Edinburgh. Sally Toms stayed there

Twenty three miles south of Edinburgh, in the beautiful and quiet border country, lies Peebles – an ancient and Royal Burgh in the valley carved out by the river Tweed.

On a hill overlooking the town is Castle Venlaw; a four star 18th century hotel. It's a small fairytale castle with a little round turret and an excellent example of Scottish baronial architecture.

This castle is owned by John and Shirley Sloggie; hoteliers with a great deal of experience in the Scottish hospitality industry. They bought it in 1997, after a long period of searching for the perfect place that would become both first class hotel and family home. They found it in Peebles, as John reminisces: “When I walked into Venlaw it just felt right. It felt like I had been here before.”

Romantic nonsense? Not so, indeed John had been to the castle before, aged just five years old.

“It turned out that my grandparents stayed in this hotel back in 1963, when it was known as Venlaw Castle Hotel. My parents, my sister and I came to visit them. There is even a photograph of my sister and I standing by the ornamental pond.”

That portrait now hangs proudly in the hotel's reception area.

The hotel was originally built in 1782 but various wings and storeys were added on later. It has changed ownership several times over the years but has been transformed in the hands of John and Shirley.

Admittedly, some of the furnishings will not be to everyone's taste, but the overall effect is traditional and ho...

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• By : Sally Toms
• In : Best of Scotland
• Issue : 24
• Page : 40
• Words : 987