Shieldaig Lodge

Whale-watching, spectacular sunsets and starry, starry nights are among the wonders at this Victorian former hunting lodge on a wooded estate lapped by Loch Gairloch. It is almost worth a visit for the drive alone from Inverness through dramatic scenery, though ‘good food, excellent service’ and ‘lovely public rooms’ are further attractions noted by a reader this year. It is now part of the Original Collection (see Widbrook Grange, Forss House, The Kirkwall Hotel, and Melville Castle), and while the same reader felt it ‘lacked some of the charm that local ownership brings’, bedrooms have the same solid, traditional feel, with antiques and original features. A loch-facing suite has a carved four-poster, a separate sitting room, an in-room roll-top bath. In the ‘well-managed’ restaurant, a three-course, three-choice à la carte menu showcases estate and home-grown produce in dishes such as pan-roasted Highland beef ribeye, Dauphinoise potato, braised red cabbage, maȋtre d’hôtel jus. Packed lunches are available, for days spent exploring the rocky coastline, and the lodge has its own stalkers and ghillies if you come for the country sports. (PF)