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Approach the Penicuik Estate from any direction, and you’ll pass through a vision of everyday Scottish charm: the gray sandstone edifices of Edinburgh’s outer suburbs, roundabouts upon roundabouts, figures hunched over in the chill and wrapped in tartan scarves while walking their dogs. Eventually, after whizzing along the artery road that snakes south out of Edinburgh and through the dramatic landscapes of the Pentland Hills, you’ll stop to turn through a set of imposing 18th-century gates. Follow a series of winding lanes past fairytale follies and various ornamental outbuildings, and you’ll pull up at the majestic building at the heart of the estate: Old Penicuik House, a restored ruin with enormous open ceilings and empty windows to peer through and see the crumbling interior, or the arcadian landscapes beyond. This air of the otherworldly was only heightened during my visit in early January, when a layer of fresh snow glittered in the branches of every tree and blanketed every surface to lend the entire place an eerie hush. Just half an hour earlier, I’d been in the sterile arrivals hall of Edinburgh Airport—now, apparently, I was in Narnia.
It turns out I’m far from the first person to be enchanted by the Penicuik Estate—and if its current stewards have their way, I certainly won’t be the last. The backstory: In 1654, these some 7,500 acres of ancient woodlands and meadows were acquired by the aristocratic Clerk family (who still own it today), who quickly set about establishing it as a hub for the aesthetic and intellectual elite of their time. The extraordinary grounds serve as one of the earliest examples of Capability Brown-style “designed landscapes”—over half a million planted trees, artificially cleared pockets of woodland that offer sightlines across the Esk Valley, and plenty of the (delightfully named) ha-has to boundary the gardens without interrupting those views—and soon became a hotspot for 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, from architect Robert Adam to philosopher David Hume.
Today, the estate has been given a new lease on life, largely thanks to the ambitious plans of the current baronet’s son, Edward Clerk. A few years back, Clerk gave up his finance job in London to return to his family’s working farm and help transform it into the forward-thinking hospitality enterprise he believed it could one day be. The first stage of Clerk’s vision was converting a number of outbuildings in holiday lets with a difference: somewhere between a private vacation home and a standalone luxury hotel suite. (The amenities include everything from smart TVs to underfloor heating, and while you can’t order room service—yet—the endlessly obliging concierge team will happily arrange hampers of local goods and freshly prepared ready meals, or even lay on a chef to come and rustle up a feast for you each evening using specialist fire cooking techniques.)
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The results are impressive. After taking in the eerie beauty of the main house—having been destroyed by a fire in 1899 and left in ruins for over a century, it was a major restoration project in the late 2000s that saved from total collapse—we wended our way down to our home for the weekend, a neoclassical spa house named Eskfield that dates back to 1714. A pin code was entered and we were inside, ready to take in this object lesson in contemporary country house style done right. Yes, the kitchen had all the gadgets and gizmos you could want for—Our Place cookware, Miele appliances, and a very jazzy tap that produces boiling water with a twist of the hand—but were balanced with a gently rustic charm: think wildflowers tucked into a roughly-hewn ceramic pot on an antique oak dining table, or a richly patterned blind hanging above the window to frame the view of snow-covered bushes beyond.
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Most delightful, however, was the living room, with its walls covered in wraparound scenes of pastoral landscapes and birds fluttering in the canopies of trees; meanwhile, a trio of dramatic floor-to-ceiling glass orangery doors were painted a deep green with matching curtains and leafy potted standards flanking it, as a perfect bridge to the great outdoors. (This clever blurring of inside and outside comes courtesy of Emily Smoor, founder of the Edinburgh-based Fantoush; evidently, it always helps to have a local’s eye.) Beyond the windows sits a private four-acre walled garden, which could have been plucked straight from a vintage postcard—fruit trees scattered in the near distance, a babbling stream cutting through the center—were it not for the more modern conveniences of an outdoor wood burner, a Big Green Egg grill, and an elegant cedar hot tub and plunge pool embedded within the paving immediately outside. And I haven’t even got to the private spa area yet, with its wood-paneled walls painted a soothing shade of red clay, the scent of warm pine emanating from it invitingly each evening before dinner.
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Consider this a warning: once you’re ensconced in the plush environs of your private cottage or villa, you’ll find it very hard to leave. Thankfully, there’s plenty to do on-site, so you don’t have to go very far to feel like you’ve checked some more exploratory activities off the list. You can borrow e-bikes to traverse the nearly 20 kilometers of trails that crisscross the estate, or join a local guide to go foraging for mushrooms (and receive some tips on how to use them while cooking later that evening), or try some wild wellness with yoga and breathwork classes in the woods. And for those visiting from further afield, who might feel obliged to undertake at least a bit of sightseeing, it’s only 10 minutes up the road to the mysterious Gothic magic of Rosslyn Chapel. Or 30 minutes to Edinburgh, with its world-class museums and galleries (when we visited, the talk of the town was an exhibition on the Edinburgh-based artist Everlyn Nicodemus at the National Galleries of Scotland) and thriving local food scene. (Oh, and make sure to stop by the homewares shop Bard in a historic dockland building on the Leith waterfront, where you’ll find goods exclusively made by artisans and makers from across the Scottish isles.)
As Clerk explains when we meet for a coffee at the estate offices, however, this is just the first step in what he hopes will come to offer a new model for agricultural estates looking to expand into hospitality. Next up is the reopening of the wonky Palladian wonder that is Penicuik House. What was once a stable block—albeit one with a handful of architectural quirks, including a clock tower and a replica of a Roman temple that now serves as a dovecote—and then became the family pile after the destruction of the old house, is currently undergoing another transformation under the aegis of furniture designer Charles Orchard, with the end result set to be an eclectic mix of old and new. There will be art and antiques plucked from the Clerks’ own collection (which you can expect will be impressive—it was a Clerk, after all, who brought the first Rembrandt to Scotland back in the second half of the 17th century), scattered around to serve as a backdrop for the larger groups set to rent it out when it opens later this year as an exclusive use property housing up to 32 guests at a time.
There are also plans in motion to host a series of wellness and creative retreats; one imagines it will be an especially popular venue each August when the Edinburgh Fringe Festival rolls around. It’s hard not to feel that this is exactly the kind of offering a certain kind of seasoned, design-conscious visitor is looking for: all of the amenities and activities that a five-star hotel is able to offer, but with just the right amount of independence. However lovely some travelers find it to be waited on hand-and-foot, these days, it’s more common they prefer a little more autonomy—and even better if it comes without the guilty feeling associated with homestay rental platforms.
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On our final day, I was able to drag myself away from that log fire, and I headed a long walk over the nearby Pentland Hills, whose typical terrain of silver birch and scraggly heather was covered in a layer of snow that grew ever thicker the higher we climbed. There were families sledding down the slopes, students in thick coats and mittens wandering through the snow-covered forests at a leisurely pace, a running group in eye-popping neon leisurewear pacing up the hill at an impressive speed; like a Breughel painting recast in 21st-century Scotland.
Returning to Eskfield, our cheeks ruddy from the whipping January winds, everything was exactly as we needed it to be. It was all in the details: the fact that the carpet runner for the stairs was lightly cushioned as we padded up barefoot to change into our swim gear, or that the sauna came with a timer setting, so that we could schedule it to be a perfect 80 degrees Celsius upon our return from the walk. A heaving wooden platter of whisky-cured smoked salmon with whipped crowdie cheese and treacle soda bread had been left on the kitchen table to fortify us, and the boiling water tap was ready to pour us a peppermint tea to warm up. Old-fashioned in all the right ways, and hi-tech in all the right ways: the team behind Penicuik has found the magic formula.
