I went there in order to check it out as there is an excellent restaurant, Rhubarb, in the hotel. My friends and I have already eaten in the Garden Room at the Witchery, another of James Thomson's great restaurants, and which is located right by Edinburgh Castle. But I also went because a friend's daughter was married there a few years ago (it is a wonderful wedding location) and he told me that there were peacocks living there - and I am a sucker for seeing those wonderful birds.
Prestonfield is supposed to be situated only five minutes from the Royal Mile, but that is if you are driving, and I doubt if you could make it there that fast in a car. It took me nearly an hour to walk there from an area very near to the Royal Mile. The hotel is surrounded by twenty acres of gardens and parkland, sits right on the edge of Holyrood Park and there is a great view of Arthur's Seat from the grounds. I doubt that many, if any, people enter the drive on foot.
The photograph below shows one side of the building.
This photograph shows the garden at the other side of the building where, appropriately enough, there is a patch of rhubarb, after which the restaurant is named. Since it was built, the house has changed hands many times and, during the 1700's, the then owner, who took a particular interest in horticultural propagation, was accorded a gold medal for his successful introduction of rhubarb to Scotland. No doubt, this must be the reason for the restaurant's name.
At the end of this part of the garden, for weddings on a grand scale, there are Prestonfield's historic circular Georgian stables - the capital's ultimate venue.
Below is the view from the circular stables, across the garden, to the house - very impressive!
Information given to me by a very kind member of staff at the hotel states that, 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 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, new life has been breathed into the stately old pile following its acquisition by James Thomson, owner of Edinburgh's celebrated Witchery and Tower restaurants. The patina of age has been gently lifted from the house and its treasures; its fading splendours have been sympathetically restored; its atmosphere transferred from one of faded grandeur to a new exuberance. It is ready to be rediscovered, once more as Edinburgh's most handsome house in the city's most wonderful setting.
Now to the other reason for my visit - the peacocks. As I said earlier, my friend's daughter was married at Prestonfield House a few years ago and he told me to go and see the house and peacocks, if I had a chance. I was told by the staff that there were 3 peacocks roaming wild in the grounds - but it was a dull drizzly day and so they were in hiding! All that way, just for them to hide from me. However, the hotel had just bought 10 peacock chicks and they were in a small aviary in the grounds. I had a hard time finding them and had to be escorted to the aviary by one of the handsome black-kilted doormen - hardly a hardship! I was expecting small peachicks - but these were almost as large as fully grown peacocks.
In the couple of photographs below, a squirrel had shimmied down the tree trunk in the middle of the aviary and was cheekily eating the peacock's food.
Next year, when my friends and I are once more at the Edinburgh Festival, I hope we will manage to go to Rhubarb restaurant for a lovely meal in great surroundings - and find out if the peacocks are having a good time in their new home.
No comments:
Post a Comment