I know it sounds wrong, being caught in possession of a live frog in Scotland’s most sophisticated hotel bar. The walls are lined in cashmere. The frog, Cyril, was recently lifted from a rotting log. He doesn’t belong. I see that now. But I can explain, honest.
This is Gleneagles, the world-famous Perthshire golf resort opened by the Caledonian Railway Company in 1924 and described as a “Riviera in the Highlands”. It hosted the 2005 G8 Summit and the 2014 Ryder Cup before being purchased by hip global hotel group Ennismore for £150 million. With the help of another £30 million, it has been reinvented as “the glorious playground”, where all ages can hunt, fish, shoot and play at being laird, with a cast of 900 staff and 850 acres of spectacular scenery.
Playground it may be, but the hotel has never had a kids’ club of the type where children peel off from their parents for full days to play with their peers. This month, that’s changing. Gleneagles is hosting a “pop-up” kids’ club in collaboration with the luxury holiday company Scott Dunn. My children are the first to test it. I too thought that sounded great, pre-frog.
On the fringes of the lake in front of the hotel is a new and picturesque bell tent filled with fleecy rocking sheep and crocheted toadstools. From this base, the kids test activities designed for the littlest children first – a nature walk with Henry, the hotel’s dog, collecting natural materials for art, then the bug hunt culminating in the ecstatic capture of Cyril. Soon, a Gleneagles nanny ushers them off to the Trail Yard, the new “adventure hub”, where there is tree climbing and zip wiring for the older crowd.
Fearing this may over-excite Cyril, he ends up accompanying me on a hotel tour instead. Awkward, though the staff are unfazed. If I was going to take an amphibian to the bar, muses Colin Farndon, the hotel’s director of leisure, it should have been a newt.
This characteristic humour is written into the hotel’s service. On our first morning, we part our curtains to witness a member of staff in shirt and waistcoat jogging round the pristine lawn with a diminutive guest in a tutu. It is also woven into the hotel’s decor, which blends Scottish warmth and high luxury, perfect art deco detailing and a luxuriant use of colour that hints at Ennismore’s Mumbai connections. It’s a magical meeting of styles.
Now is a great time to add a kids’ club into the mix. Home schooling has left many families keen to give each other a little space this summer. The club is also split into distinct age groups (Adventurers for ages three to four, Voyagers for five to seven, Pioneers for eight to 11 and Crew for over 11). After a term away from their peers, it’s almost an exercise in re-socialisation. And lord, how they pack it in. The kids take a tennis class, do a spot of falconry, try golf and fishing, ride bikes. They don’t ride horses, canoe, clay pigeon shoot or off-road on ArgoCats, purely because they have run out of time and fall on to their beds blissfully exhausted.
Here’s what they report. Johnny, aged nine: “Unlike hotel kids’ clubs that just stick children in a room and switch on a film to distract them, this one gives you the opportunity to try so many amazing things and be in the great outdoors, something we all need and most people love. I didn’t even know I liked golf, but now it’s my new favourite game. I’ll play tennis much more too.” Frida, six: “I would 100 per cent recommend it. It is extra creative, especially if you like nature and you’ve been stuck at home for a long time.”
One nanny for every two children and a focus on the outdoors should ease parental concerns too. It’s characteristic of the hotel’s latest conjuring act, disguising pandemic precautions as new luxuries. An online portal gives guests access on their phones to menus across its 10 bars and restaurants, and all hotel services, and also to a digital library of newspapers and magazines – eliminating problem “touch points” and letting you flick through Vogue while waiting for your children to finish playing noughts and crosses on the lawn.
Breakfast is now table service, but the hotel’s vast kitchens allow the continuation of a full and sophisticated menu at the Strathearn, where we reconvene for supper (minus Cyril, now reunited with his log). Despite being Britain’s most beautiful hotel dining room, several tables of children are absorbed without tarnishing its elegance or curbing anyone’s enjoyment. The staff wear visors but the pianist plays on. This, after all, is what Gleneagles does best – making the impossible look effortless.
Explorers Kids’ Club at Gleneagles from £5,950 based on a five-night package for a family of four. The programme will run throughout August and is likely to return for October half-term.
Read the full review: The Gleneagles Hotel