Top sporting stays

Effortlessly smart and with superb shooting and fishing on the doorstep, these British hotels are the perfect base for fieldsports enthusiasts, says Madeleine Silver

- Madeleine Silver

The Fife Arms, Aberdeenshire

There’s a sense of theatre to this imposing Victorian pile at the end of the Dee Valley. Perhaps it’s the heady mix of tartan and taxidermy paired with a Picasso and Richard Jackson’s neon antler chandelier. Or the mahogany four-poster beds, standalone copper bathtubs and the moody, low-lit whisky bar.

Then there’s The Clunie Dining Room with its flamboyant openfire cooking (don’t leave without trying the Invercauld estate venison) and the stately drawing room. Built as a coaching inn by the Duke of Fife in the 19th century, it opened its doors in 1856 after Queen Victoria had bought nearby Balmoral a few years earlier and the tourists had followed to this corner of the Highlands.

Most recently, Swiss art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth – who co-founded the Hauser & Wirth gallery – have given it a money-no-object overhaul, with their pick of modern art taking centre stage. However, for all the eccentricity and luxury, the jewel of this place is the sporting country that they’ve inherited.

The hotel can arrange salmon and trout fishing on the Dee, Don and Tay; rough and clay shooting; Highland ponies to heave a picnic up the hill for you; the Fife Arms Defender to bump you around the estate – and its team of gillies are on hand to help you bag the ultimate prize: a Macnab.