The Hopetoun Arms Hotel, Biggar

Small bar in the only hotel / pub in this remote village, as said before the highest in the country. A friendly family run place, the lounge is tastefully decorated in front room style and the counter is so small it’s hardly noticeable and has three founts. Only standard Scottish kegs, Tennents and Belhaven Best plus Guinness, usual selection of spirits but also majoring on Malts and Edinburgh Gin. The bar is nearer the back of the building with a separate door, much plainer furnishings and a wider choice of drinks, including a cider and one more from Belhaven, as well as the Guinness, Belhaven Best and Tennents available in the lounge, it also has most of the spirits. A double room B&B is now £110.

Official site of The Hopetoun Arms Hotel - www.hopetounarms.co.uk

Official site of The Hopetoun Arms Hotel - www.hopetounarms.co.uk

The bar/lounge looks much the same as it did last time I was here in Scotland’s highest residential hotel. Accommodation prices have increased significantly, though, as another customer was quoted £45 for a single room (which used to be £25). The barmaid very kindly opened the bar 20 minutes early for me, which was very welcome after a cold day in the windy hills, as was the real fire blazing in the hearth. After official opening time at 5 o’clock, I overheard an interesting conversation between two locals about finding gold in a stream near the village. The area was once famous for gold prospecting. My pint of Belhaven Best cost £3.10, which is reasonable as this is the only pub in Leadhills. Guinness, Tennent’s and Carling lagers, McEwan’s 60 Shilling and Blackthorn cider are also on draught. There is also a hand pump, but the real ale had apparently “run out.”

Originally constructed, in the mid 19th century, as a hunting lodge for the surrounding Hopetoun Estate, the Hopetoun Arms now boasts of being the highest residential hotel in the U.K. It is also the highest pub in Lanarkshire, and the only one in Scotland’s second highest village (after Wanlockhead, a mile to the west). The public bar/lounge is accessed by a door at the side of the building, next to the beer garden and smoking shelter. The real fire with sofas around it, the seat level television and the well stocked bookcase give it a bit of a living room feeling, but there is more pub-like seating around the serving hatch. Reasonably priced food is available and the residential accommodation, at £25 per person per night, is remarkably inexpensive for a hotel. The village shop (the only one) is situated directly across an alleyway from the bar door, which is useful if you want to combine a shopping trip with a visit to the pub.