I still sometimes dream about this place and how creepy it was. I know that's not something you want to see on a review for a place you would like to stay, but the ambiance here was like nothing I had ever experienced before and I would come back again and take people with me if I could. In fact, I plan to someday. This place is definitely worth checking out. Especially if you're into creepy old hotels. Scotland is ripe with history. It's everywhere you look. The fact that I found this place foreboding is just part of the experience.
We weren't even supposed to stay here during our great United Kingdom tour in 2007, but my dad ran over a curb in the rental Mercedes Benz (I will never own one after this experience. He ran over a curb in the center of the highway and it blew the tire and dented the hubcap.) and we were stuck car-less in Scottish Highland nowhere (nowhere else I would rather be stuck). My dad was bent out of shape and tuckered out from both driving a stick shift with the wrong hand on the wrong side of the road, and telling my mom and me to stop touching strange rocks in the middle of random glens. So, that led us to spend a night here after it was recommended by the repair guy.
There was some kind of interesting war museum inside, blessed FOOD at smallish pub (We were starving. No matter how the place looked, it was an oasis!) and one sort of bored but charming clerk guy who helped us find a room at the last minute. I very much remember a Shining-esque quality to the hallway and rooms, but then again, I feel that way in most hotels and usually check the bathtub every time.
Like everywhere else we stayed in Scotland, we received top notch hospitality here as well as an interesting story we still talk about to this day. My mom swears up and down she dreamed about the place the night before the tire blew, and remembered the name from her dream. None of us were ever really believers in paranormal stuff, either. Until this trip.
Anyway ignore all the creepy mumbo jumbo and do give this place a try. It earned its stars. It can't help it's an historic building in the middle of beautiful rainy nowhere. read more