A house with history
like a private hot tub and walking paths through nature from the hotel. Additional offerings are planned to continually improve upon the guest experience, including a spa and an outdoor terrace barbecue and dining area, as well as six ensuite staff bedrooms and kitchen.
“Since we took over, the hotel has been awarded a Rising Star Hotel award and it is wonderful to get to work with the team to relaunch the ‘sleeping beauty’, said Andreas. “The Knipoch House is an iconic country house hotel. The investment already completed has created the most beautiful new rooms, and the hotel is perfectly located for leisure and business.”
“The renovations are a very welcome addition to our hospitality sector,” said Lord Provost Maurice Corry. “There’s a lot of ingenuity and hard work that has gone into relaunching Knipoch. It’s a real example of what we can do. It brings jobs to the area too, and we need this sort of level of quality in Argyll and Bute, which we’re quite capable of producing because we’ve got the talent to do it. As the Lord Provost of the Council, we fully support this sort of venture and long may it continue.”
For more information and to book a stay, visit: https:// sonascollection.com/ our-hotels/knipoch/
Guests were welcomed to the event by a local piper Alfie Robertson
The Craig family opened Knipoch House as a hotel in 1981, but before this, it was a family home for centuries. With the original lodge dating from the 15th century, it’s no wonder that Knipoch has played a part in Argyll’s fascinating history. In 1592, Campbell, Thane of Cawdor was said to have been assassinated here at the “house of Knipoch in Lorne”, providing an enigmatic association with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. During the Second World War, then owners Major and Mrs Mellor took in children who were evacuated from Glasgow, where they were under threat from German bombers. According to Betty Irvine Burns, who recorded her experience for the Wartime Memories Project, war was declared while she was on the train to Oban with about ten boys and girls of various ages. Her memories of that time were happy as she was evacuated for three years and nine months. Even many years after immigrating to Canada, Mrs Burns remembered fondly Major and Mrs Mellor and her teacher, Miss Cameron, who taught the children in the Drawing Room. Among the distinguished guests at the Knipoch House grand opening gala on Friday was the grandson of the Mellors, Jamie Mellor and his wife, Morag, whose farm is just a few hundred metres from the hotel. Jamie grew up in the house in the 1950s and 60s after moving from England when he was about five years old, and he has many fond memories of those days. “It was our home until 1970, when we sold it to the Craig family,” Jamie reminisced. “We lived with my grandmother, and I remember her as quite a tough lady.” Pointing around the newly renovated grand dining room, Jamie recalled that his grandmother built that section between 1920 and 1930, when his grandfather was away in Canada. “Next door, the mantelpiece was made from a bit of wood from Ypres cathedral that my grandfather brought back from the First World War. When they put the cathedral back together again there was a bit missing! “It was a big house and there were only three of us here with 13 bedrooms. There was no central heating, and because it was north facing, it was often quite cold. But I went to Kilninver Primary School, which I loved. We had six caravans on the shore of the loch, so there were hundreds of children here in the summer. It was a good time and a great place to grow up. I wish Anne and her team the best of luck. I think the new Knipoch House Hotel is going to be very successful.”