Half a century ago, the house remembered its past reputation for hospitality, and opened as a hotel. Stars of the sixties, seventies and eighties delighted in its tranquil setting, its unique architecture, its handsome antiques and precious artworks. Sandie Shaw walked barefoot across the marble floor of the front hall. Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher each dined at Prestonfield under the watchful eyes of early Dick-Cunyngham family portraits. Sean Connery, Elton John and Catherine Zeta Jones all partied the night away. And Oliver Reed raised the hell for which he was so very well known.
Now, James Thomson, owner of Edinburgh’s celebrated Witchery by the Castle and Tower restaurants, has breathed new life into the stately old pile following its acquisition. The patina of age has been gently lifted from the house and its treasures; its fading splendours have been sympathetically restored; its atmosphere transformed from one of faded grandeur to a new exuberance. It is ready to be rediscovered, once more Edinburgh’s most handsome hotel in the city’s most wonderful setting – once more, as William Burn noted over a century ago, “a picture of Arcadia.”
Gallery
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