Penicuik House offers the aristocratic Scottish way of life in a series of smart rentals outside Edinburgh
Rising to the south west of Edinburgh, the Pentland Hills have long attracted holidaymakers of a hardier temperament, drawn to the range’s rugged bike trails and its 62 miles of heather-purfled paths. To active city dwellers, they are the site of weather-tempered weekend rituals. To one son of the Scottish capital, Robert Louis Stevenson, they were ‘the hills of home’ – the wind-whipped backdrop to his youth and Scottish identity.
The same could be said of Ed Clerk, whose family history is inseparable from this landscape and whose ancestral estate, Penicuik (pronounced ‘Penny-cook’), sits in the lap of the Pentlands’ sloping summits. His family purchased Penicuik 12 generations ago in 1647, building in the late 18th century what is now considered by many to be the finest example of Palladian architecture in the country.
Thanks to Scotland’s right to roam policy, many locals will be familiar with Old Penicuik House. Devastated by a chimney fire that burned for weeks in 1899, it is now, with the push of a dynamic charitable conservation project, the largest ruin in Scotland; an explorable carapace fronted by a wildflower carpet beloved of dog walkers. Increasingly, they – and others – are becoming aware of the work Ed is carrying out across the rest of the 7,000-acre estate, too, something he describes as ‘holistic management – a way to protect the future of this land, its history and its built heritage’.
One arm of this programme is hospitality. Ed grew up in what is known as Penicuik House, the erstwhile stables of the old house. Its spired clock tower and domed dovecot is a replica of – and tribute to – Arthur’s O’on, the Roman monument destroyed by vandals in 1743 and the reconstruction of which was commissioned by James Clerk in 1763. They were grander than most human dwellings let alone equine ones, even before they were converted, post fire, by his great great-grandparents. At this point, they were made even more imposing by the addition of materials salvaged from the still smouldering stately home: moulded and pedimented doorways; panelled shutters repurposed as wainscoting; and hundreds of paintings and sculptures, amassed largely by successive Clerks during their grand tours of Europe.
It was a wonderful place to grow up, Ed says, but now, after two years of work, it has been transformed into a stylish self-catered property. Mirroring Ed’s overarching aim to make the estate function in the 21st century, furniture designer Charles Orchard has worked wonders on the interiors, balancing old and new. Think Baroque oils hung hugger-mugger on walls painted sunshine yellow; contemporary furniture sitting cheek by jowl with 17th- and 18th-century pieces; ikat curtains paired with museum-quality tapestries and carpets. ‘I wanted it to feel as though you were staying in a friend’s house,’ Ed explains. ‘Albeit a friend with impeccable taste.’
With 16 bedrooms and available to hire in its entirety, Penicuik House stands as the flagship of a broader hospitality enterprise incorporating five cottages on the estate (with more in development), each with baths deep enough to swim in and gardens with solar-heated hot tubs and Big Green Egg barbecues. The cottages have been developed to entice hikers and honeymooners alike, although the entire estate can be reserved for weddings and other major celebrations.
The grounds have also been painstakingly revamped. There is the American Garden (so called for its rhododendrons transported across the Atlantic by a forebear with a botanical bent), by way of the monuments that dot the demesnes of Penicuik, conceived by Sir John Clerk (who built the old house in alignment with Enlightenment principles). The ponds, one used for boating, the other for curling, have been similarly renewed. As they shine silver in the sunlight, it’s easy to see why John, in the poem he wrote about the estate, saw them as ‘huge mirrors set in verdant frames’.
A lot of the work is less visible. The restoration of Penicuik’s peatlands is underway, as is its forestry enterprise, with the reinstatement of native broadleaved trees across the estate – something Ed is particularly excited about. John, in a radical move even by today’s standards, planted 600,000 birch, oak and other indigenous species in his lifetime, many of which were cut down in favour of fast-growing conifers.
Ed’s dream is for the income from the rentals to be channelled back into the land, so that ‘the estate supports the estate’. Though Penicuik has only recently hosted its first wedding, bookings from all over the world are already stacking up. Of course, many are drawn to the beauty of the grounds. But it is hard not to be wowed by the soul and substance of this place, now preserved for generations to come.
Ways and means
Sixteen-bedroom Penicuik House costs from £5,400 a night for a minimum two-night stay; one-bedroom to four-bedroom cottages cost from £220 a night, self-catering: penicuikestate.com
Tom Griffiths1/4A bar is one of several smart spaces that have been created
for guests to relax in within the renovated former stable block.
Tom Griffiths2/4The sitting room in Eastlin, a one-bedroom cottage built in the 1700s as a porter’s lodge.
Tom Griffiths3/4One of Penicuik House’s 16 bedrooms.
Tom Griffiths4/4Antiques and vintage pieces are combined with contemporary furniture against a backdrop of oil paintings depicting various members of the Clerk family.
