Live like the Queen
Cottage in the heart of Royal Deeside has a luxury interior and fine views
THIS is the kind of property where, should the neighbours invite you over for a welcome drink, you are unlikely to be offered a glass of cheap prosecco. For Lily Bank sits on the edge of Braemar in the heart of Royal Deeside, where the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived last week for the start of their annual summer holiday at Balmoral.
Receiving a gold-embossed command to attend Her Majesty at the castle may be a little unlikely, but you can always dream.
Lily Bank is deceptively spacious, with an elegant sunken basement and extension that goes into the loft, offering more than 2,500 square feet of handsome living accommodation.
It occupies an elevated spot just outside the village, with gorgeous open views to the Cairngorms National Park.
Your line of sight takes you across the Dee Valley up towards the Linn O’Dee, a beauty spot much loved by the Queen’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
Dating from around 1880, Lily Bank is split between the main accommodation, shared over three floors, and a self-contained basement apartment which is accessed via stairs at the back of the house.
Here, the fantastic living area features an original granite fireplace with a wood-burning stove, a double bedroom with en suite shower room and space for preparing snacks and drinks.
The ground floor follows largely traditional lines, with a living room and a dining room either side of the front door.
The dining room blends into the kitchen at the rear, which boasts an Aga. The first floor has a bedroom and two rooms being used as offices so the owners can work from home part-time. The top floor serves as a long library.
Throughout the house, only the finest materials have been used in its restoration, including bespoke, hand-crafted hardwood sash and case double glazed windows by George Moir Carpentry, Forbes and Lomax power points and Samuel Heath ironmongery.
The sale includes a wealth of accessories and appliances, including a washing machine and tumble drier, fridge-freezers, four fixed televisions, Sonos audio equipment and Wi-Fi routers. The detached villa has had a number of incarnations since it started out as a fine granite-built residence in the 19th Century. It operated as a private hotel, then as an outpost for the government’s Nature Conservancy Council before returning to domestic use in the 1980s.
Selling agent Alan Cumming, of Aberdein Considine, said: ‘The owners have spared no expense in the refurbishment of the house.
‘Part of its charm is that, from the road, it looks quite compact. Yet it is built over four floors, which you don’t quite appreciate until you are in there. And the views are spectacular. It is just two minutes’ walk from the village, so you get all the benefits of a rural location while all the facilities of Braemar are on your doorstep.’
Those benefits include a grocers and post office, butcher’s shop, chemist and GP surgery.
Braemar is also home of the Fife Arms Hotel, named Hotel of the Year by the Sunday Times last year.
As well as fine fare and ales, the hotel also boasts 14,000 works of art – including a Picasso – which are integrated into every room and corridor of the former coaching inn. The premises is owned by Iwan and Manuela Wirth, the Swiss power couple behind the Hauser & Wirth gallery.
The Royal Family have been frequent visitors to the nearby Balmoral Estate since it was purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852.
And while you might not get that longed-for invitation to join the monarch at the castle, this sumptuous, stone-built Victorian villa would no doubt get the royal seal of approval.