Prestonfield

Edinburgh

If Edinburgh is a city of granite respectability, Prestonfield is its scandalous cousin: baroque, eccentric, draped in velvet and striding about the lawns in the company of peacocks. It is Downton Abbey crossed with Narnia, and has been playing that part since Sir William Bruce designed it in 1687 as a house fit to impress kings. History obliges: monarchs and ministers have passed through its rooms, and James Dick, the tobacco baron who built his fortune on snuff, ensured the place would always be tinged with theatre.

Today it is James Thomson’s stage. The restaurateur who made The Witchery a gothic landmark has restored Prestonfield into something rarer: a country house that lives within the city but refuses to behave like it. Only five minutes from the Royal Mile, and yet you enter the grounds and find twenty acres of gardens, Arthur’s Seat looming like a painted backdrop, lawns alive with highland cattle, sheep and those imperious peacocks. The effect is deliberately surreal, as if someone had taken a Gainsborough canvas, sprinkled it with stardust and added a dash of pantomime.

And then, of course, there is the welcome. In over a decade of visits, I have found the same faces waiting, remembering names, quirks, and habits with such warmth that one forgets this is a hotel at all. My daughter is treated like royalty, sometimes literally, with staff conspiring to crown her the princess of Prestonfield. Even our small dog is accorded a welcome worthy of nobility. Service here does not draw on manuals or checklists; it is theatrical improvisation, perfectly judged, every time.

The rooms themselves are acts of bravura. No two are alike, each one a fantasia of brocade, silk, and antiques. In one suite, a bed that seems half the size of the room itself requiring a step to climb to even sit on; in another, a silver chariot-shaped bath worthy of Louis XIV. Some rooms are indulgent boudoirs, others resemble the lair of an 18th-century Laird. But the thread running through all is comfort, surprising amid the spectacle: mattresses engineered for oblivion, bathrooms stocked with Penhaligon toiletries, and storage discreetly tucked into velveted corners.

Rhubarb, the restaurant, is more than a name, it is a declaration. Seasonal Scottish produce is transformed into theatre: venison with dark chocolate, langoustines with lemon and saffron, soufflés that arrive with the hauteur of a diva. Breakfast is no less indulgent: porridge with whisky cream, eggs any way, bacon so crisp it could be framed. The wine list, curated with as much love as the décor, leads naturally to the Whisky Room, a space where time slows to a Highland beat.

The public rooms are another act entirely. Drawing rooms with velvet drapes, deep armchairs, portraits glaring down from gilt frames. Fireplaces that roar in winter, candles that gutter in silver sticks. There is a sense, always, of being in a play: other guests are fellow cast members, staff the stagehands who know their cues. Afternoon tea here is high ceremony, served in surroundings so opulent that even the scones seem to stand taller.

Step outside, and the gardens are no less surreal. Arthur’s Seat rises beyond the ha-ha wall, peacocks strut with disdain for the paparazzi, and highland cattle and sheep graze together in bucolic counterpoint to the city only streets away. In the evening, lanterns glow, and the whole estate takes on the quality of a dream. Guests walk slower, conversations hush, as though the place itself is conducting them.

It is difficult to say whether Prestonfield is a hotel or a theatre. Perhaps it is both: a stage set where every guest is at once audience and actor, the play endlessly re-performed but never quite the same. After so many visits, the staff still surprise me; my daughter still leaves in tears at parting; I still find myself half-expecting a peacock to follow us to the car.

In the end, what Prestonfield achieves is rare. It is opulent without pretension, eccentric without absurdity, a country house within a city that makes a theatre of hospitality and a ritual of return. You do not simply stay here; you inhabit a history-rich dream in brocade, and when you leave, you are already rehearsing your next entrance.

“Prestonfield is Downton Abbey crossed with Narnia, velvet, peacocks, and a sense of mischief behind every door.”