A fairly sizeable chunk of Scotland to the north and west of Glasgow has been Clan Colquhoun country for the past 850 years. Their patch. Their turf. Their hills. Their glens. Their forests, rivers, lochs, islands, farms, fields, forts, castles, churches, chapels, cottages, coaching inns.
Perhaps the best known of these assets, to the general public, is the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel, a beloved institution set back slightly from the shores of a likewise beloved loch, occupying a prominent spot in the famously pretty village of Luss.
The hotel has lately been given the treatment by Russell Sage Studios (The Fife Arms, The Goring, Lilibet’s) with all the wit and flair for which that man and his practice are renowned. The joyous tangle of newly added antlers on the outside walls — there are dozens and dozens of them; the effect is strange and beautiful, like ossified wisteria — barely hints at the delights and curiosities within.
With the full — if, perhaps, occasionally bemused — cooperation of the Colquhouns, Sage has plundered all those centuries’ worth of family history for design inspiration. Each of the guest rooms has been named in honour of a Colquhoun and designed to reflect aspects of his or her life.
I stayed in The Wallabies and the Jaguar, which celebrates Fiona Colquhoun, Countess of Arran (1918-2013), speed demon, committed animal lover and a noted beauty (Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen). All three qualities were presumably on display simultaneously when she transported, by means of her E-Type Jaguar, a passenger-seat’s worth of wallabies to Luss and thence to the Isle of Inchconnachan in Loch Lomond.
Lady Arran went on to become the first woman to break the 100-mile-per-hour barrier in a speedboat, at the age of 62. In quieter moments she perambulated — quite quickly — around Luss in the company of a pet badger called Rosie. Her husband, Arthur ‘Boofy’ Gore, 8th Earl of Arran (who also has a room in the Loch Lomond Arms named after him), was remarkable in different ways, notably as an incendiary newspaper columnist and as the peer who sponsored the (successful) 1967 bill to decriminalise homosexuality as well as an (unsuccessful) bill for the protection of badgers. When asked why the one passed and the other didn’t, he replied: ‘There are not many badgers in the House of Lords.’
The Sage-ification of the hotel’s rooms and its ground-floor Map Room, bar and restaurant is only one part of a larger programme to bring the estate as a whole into the 21st century and help secure its long-term future. This programme is being spearheaded by Patrick Colquhoun, son of the 33rd laird, Sir Malcolm Colquhoun. The idea is that the reinvigorated hotel will tempt travellers to slow down and spend days, rather than just hours, discovering Luss and its surroundings.
At about 45,000 acres, the estate is quite the backyard, and now there are all manner of appealing new ways to explore it from a base at the Loch Lomond Arms. Among them are guided walks and Land-Rover safaris through the glens and uplands, farm visits, island-hopping yacht charters and good old-fashioned whisky-assisted Scottish fireside storytelling.
If ringing the bell in Luss Parish Church (a site of worship for the past 1,500 years) with your own hands isn’t exciting enough for you, put on your waterproof racing gear and make like Lady Arran — a speedboat out to Wallaby Island is easily arranged.
Rooms from £450 on a bed-and-breakfast basis. Visit the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel website for more information and to book.