Firetop

This final entry for our Honeymoon covers our last two days in Scotland spent at Culcreuch Castle. This castle was the oldest (and most expensive) of our romantic destinations, situated in a very small ‘oops I blinked and missed it’ village - named ‘Fintry’ not too far from Stirling. We arrived late on Sunday evening, having driven a long way from Inverness and, towards the end of our journey, through far too many small and difficult to navigate roads (it didn’t help that one of the main roads was shut due to bad weather). We learned on arrival that we had just missed them having one foot of snow outside.

Culcreuch Castle’s exterior was quite similar to the other castles we had stayed at, the interior however appeared to be more ‘castle-esque’ with an authentic spiral staircase running through the centre of it (and a dungeon in the basement). No lift again though (as you’d expect for an 800 year old building) and no porter service to carry the back-breaking case up all four floors. On arrival the ground floor reception area wasn’t overly welcoming - the office was through a deep hole in the wall! It was a little like visiting somebody in prison (another experience for me to blog one day).

We were shown to our room, again we had asked for the Honeymoon suite and were advised by email that the Baron Suite was their best. Unfortunately we were not overly impressed. The room was the smallest so far and had the blandest decor of the lot. It was cold (two unadjustable storage heaters) and it resembled… well, probably anybody’s Gran’s house - very dated furniture and wall paper. Norwood Hall had managed to make a similar style look ‘genuinely antique’ rather than ‘Oxfam’.

On the plus side, this room did have the best bath of the lot - wide enough for both my wife and I to share together . Just don’t run the bath taps at the same time as the sink taps… oh and make sure you leave a spare half an hour free to wait for the cold water to fill up the bath at a slow trickle! It was the best way of getting warm though before leaping into bed to escape the freezing cold room.

The Baron Suite didn’t have any sort of mini-bar (just tea making facilities) - something you’d expect from a £180 a night destination. There was no bottled water supplied, so we were given no option but to attempt to drink the ‘pure’ scottish tap water which had splurted out some black stuff earlier when we were brushing our teeth. The four-poster bed was nice and large, and very comfortable  - no horseshoe nonsense here.

Our one attempt at ordering room service failed, Suzie_Q telephoned down to order some soups and was told ’sorry we’re understaffed right now - you’ll need to come down’. We went downstairs to find two staff… serving just two members of the public - no other diners or guests - and a nice big crossword being completed on the bar… ‘too lazy for room service’ was our interpretation rather than ‘too busy’. The hostility from the grumpy bar lady made us wish there was a local Tesco garage to get a sandwich.

In the morning we opened the curtains to be confronted with the most amazing view of the Campsie Fells, it was truly stunning. But is location alone enough to command a high price tag? The hotel’s facilities and decor were no better than that on offer at a caravan site in Clacton on Sea - if you took that caravan and moved it to Fintry would that mean you could charge £180 a night? No.

At breakfast we met David, the ‘hands-on’ Managing Director of the Castle. He was a really amicable man and we enjoyed talking to him. He is clearly very passionate about Culcreuch. To summarise our chats with him; essentially Culcreuch is a castle for weddings, but they take normal paying guests. He admitted that they could easily spend £200,000 doing up the place to be more glamorous but they liked it they way it was, especially as they’d already spent quite some time renovating it after the death of its previous ‘old lady owner’ who lived in just two rooms.

Suzie_Q and I were of the opinion that more money should be spent on Culcreuch to justify the price tag. Better trained staff, a more professional service and luxury offerings. Currently it’s not worth even half the accommodation fee. If the current owners like it the ‘family amateur’ way then drop the price because it just disappoints those expecting something more. If Fintry’s your destination then go for a B&B instead - the service would match, you just wouldn’t get a 4 poster bed.

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