Discretion is the better part of valour, or so the saying goes, and in its 100-year history Gleneagles has had its fair share of both, having played host to the landed gentry, the rich and the famous, wounded cavalrymen and everyone in between.
Society summers would unfold here, but the closest that diarists got to capturing them were in picture captions such as “Mr Lloyd George at Gleneagles playing golf”. Whether Lloyd George was one of the Roaring Twenties guests responsible for dancing so enthusiastically that mirrors trembled and fell off the ballroom walls — this memory of the contemporaneous guest William Denby Roberts appears in a book on the hotel’s history — is not recorded.
So it’s fair to say that the staff of Gleneagles and the society columnists of yesteryear would have raised eyebrows when, this January, one guest decided to publicise their visit — enter Rod Stewart and his £10,000 tip for service that he described to The Times as “second to none”. That service isn’t just reserved for ageing rockers, though; an instinctive, intelligent and informal approach is central to Gleneagles’ success, and one of the key reasons that we are naming it our hotel of the year 2024.
The singer was there — as I was — on the eve of the hotel’s centenary year, when the crackle of Hogmanay energy more than made up for the fireworks being postponed because of high winds. At the heart of this were a team of unflappable staff who greeted guests like family, never let an off-day show and, even during particularly busy times, delivered service so seamless and choreographed that it was like ballet.
This is even more remarkable in the context of a hospitality industry in crisis, in which it is difficult to attract, train and retain staff, even in big cities — Gleneagles is in Auchterarder, an hour’s drive north of Edinburgh. Here, among the hills and glens of the Strathearn Valley, the resort’s passionate local lifers (our transfer driver, Sandy, has worked here for 13 years) have been buoyed by experts from around the world. When I first visited, in 2020, the foyer had a distinct whiff of corporate golf stays and starchy pomp. Now the warmth hits you even before you walk through the doors — bagpipes on arrival are almost eclipsed by the phenomenal kilt-sporting doormen, who welcome us (and all other guests) by name before we’ve even been introduced, affably charming us without ceremony. In fact our whole stay is so steeped in excellence that it’s impossible to pinpoint specific examples. It is just how it is.
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The hotel resonates with the original “Highland palace” vision of Donald Matheson, who opened the “Playground of the Gods” after a delay of nearly a decade caused by the breakout of the First World War. The music from its opening ball on June 7, 1924, was broadcast nationwide by the BBC, positioning it at the epicentre of the Roaring Twenties. With the advent of the Second World War it was converted into a hospital. Indeed, its first order of blackout curtains was to protect against bomb raids.
Now owned by Ennismore — the group that also owns Mama Shelter, the Hoxton and Mondrian hotels, and which rebranded it in 2017 as the “Glorious Playground” — Gleneagles continues to innovate. “We are just custodians of this building for the next generation,” Conor O’Leary, its managing director, says. “We owe it to them to make it as good as possible.”
The recent refurb has resulted in bang up to date bedrooms that retain their heritage — luxurious, but with soft modern colours and interesting curios, such as binoculars or the propellers of a miniature vintage plane, and lining paper from the cult designer Timorous Beasties in the drawers. There are thoughtful touches too: a teddy bear on an armchair in a room that has a baby cot; teen magazines (yes, they do still exist) on the trunk in another bedroom. And through the windows at almost every turn there are views of those mountains dappled in ever-changing light.
Along wide, sweeping art-lined corridors, my family’s adjoining Estate rooms — overlooking the tennis courts and the undulating grounds beyond — managed to combine space, light and cosiness. And, the greatest of all luxuries, they had ample wardrobe space with full-length hanging and shelves. The contemporary-country muted fawns and taupe interiors were enhanced with botanical prints by a local artist and a bedside book of Scottish folk tales.
You are also hard pushed to miss echoes of Gleneagles’ illustrious past. For example, it still has its own train station — it’s now a few minutes’ (complimentary) drive away, but the tracks once reached the back of the hotel — and in the wine cellar you can see the winch that was used to unload luggage and freight.
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In 1921 Gleneagles hosted the first match between American and British professional golfers, a precursor to the Ryder Cup, and its courses are said to be the best in the world — they make for a stunning walk, whether or not you’re playing a round — but this can present its own challenges. “Introducing any new activity is a risk, and always has been,” O’Leary says. “Having the best golf course in the world means that everything else also has to be the best in the world, or what’s the point?”
So that means offering the best in fishing, tennis, clay-pigeon shooting, archery and even axe-throwing. That’s no mean feat, but is one at which the hotel appears to have succeeded. We arranged a hack at our chosen pace into the heathery countryside on well-schooled horses, and it was an immediate hit with my teenage daughter. An hour with the falconer Steve Burdett and his Harris’s hawks has sparked a passion that we’re still trying (and failing) to satisfy back home in Hertfordshire. Even those who choose not to partake in activities can enjoy the daily “scores on the wall” in the lobby, cataloguing the day’s most impressive hunting, shooting and fishing achievements, as well as the winning round of golf.
When it comes to the tinies, the Glorious Playground moniker is particularly apt. The phrase “family-friendly” can be overused — sometimes by hotels that don’t even have a highchair in the restaurant — but Gleneagles justifies the term with everything from mini Land Rovers for over-threes to Argocat amphibious vehicles and a tree-climbing experience complete with a 110m zipline for teenagers. There are also child-sized bathrobes and amenities, pop-up sweet buffets (grown-ups welcome too) and an indoor swimming pool devoted to families (if you are not a fan of toddler soup you might prefer the adults-only one next door). The hotel immediately became our well-travelled preteen son’s favourite, and not just because he was allowed to ride a bike all over the grounds and skid in the gravel outside the entrance.
For a resort the size of Gleneagles, however, the thermal area fails to pack a punch. In fact, if there is a weak link overall, it’s the spa, which lacks the playfulness of the rest of the hotel and is counterintuitively not somewhere you’d want to linger. The overbright and soulless “relaxation” area invites you to do anything but that and the café feels like an awkward afterthought.
Elsewhere, though, it is the food (from seven restaurants) that jostles with the service for star billing, with a mouthwatering array of theatricals. Over the course of our stay we applied ourselves as hard as we could to sampling them all and concluded that the perfect day would start with the Strathearn breakfast buffet, which even features a vegan haggis (porridge, once mistaken by an overseas guest for pudding, is ordered à la carte). This would be followed by the weekend lunch buffet at the Birnam, complete with gueridon dessert trolley groaning with ginormous gâteaux, cake pops, macarons and a three-tier chocolate fondue, then back to the Strathearn for dinner — beef wellington is a signature dish — and crêpes suzette. We also loved our huge pizza and lunchtime curry at the Dormy. We missed out on the two-Michelin-starred Andrew Fairlie, where black and blue Scotch beef vies for attention with home-smoked Scottish lobster and roast loin of roe deer (vegetarian options are available). Next time.
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Whisky tasting with the sublime Michele took us on a gustatory journey via the hotel’s single malt — created at Scotland’s oldest working distillery, 15 minutes’ drive from the hotel (and so popular that it has now been released on to the market unannounced, to avoid breaking the internet) — and towards what I fear will become for my husband a lifelong and quite possibly expensive obsession. Or, perhaps you prefer your whisky in a Smoking Gun cocktail, lit before you?
None of this comes cheap. Yet in an era of £1,000-plus price tags on luxury hotel rooms, Gleneagles represents relatively good value, with a lead-in rate of £350 for a double and an average rate of £550. And, yes, this includes breakfast.
• Read The Times and Sunday Times Best Places to Stay 2024 here
• Read the full review of Gleneagles and book a room
No wonder there’s a feeling of relaxed contentment among the guests, many of whom return over and over, bringing children and grandchildren to experience the hotel’s brand of fairy dust. When I encountered the former Scotland football manager Gordon Strachan in the lift, he commented on a fellow guest he’d just met. “He’s been coming here for 40 years!” he said. “Might as well have bought the place.”
I’d love to tell you who it was. Discretion prevents me.
Claire Irvin was a guest of Gleneagles, which has B&B doubles from £350 (gleneagles.com). The Caledonian Sleeper operates between Euston and Gleneagles with seats from £50, classic rooms from £240 for two (sleeper.scot)
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