Knockderry Country House Hotel

Knockderry Country House Hotel sits on the shore of Loch Long at Cove on the western side of the Rosneath Peninsula, a Victorian country house extended in modern decades and run as a small luxury hotel rather than a corporate stay. The position is one of the strongest accommodation positions on the peninsula: the loch frontage runs along the lower garden and the Argyll forest behind the house climbs straight up from the shoreline.

The rooms in the main house are individually decorated and furnished with antique pieces and paintings by local Scottish artists, reflecting the age and style of the original Victorian construction. Four newer rooms have been added in the Leiper Wing, the modern extension to the south of the main house, finished to the same standard and carrying the loch view from the upper floor. All rooms work with the comfortable-with-character register the place is run on rather than the styled-luxury register of a brand hotel.

The beds are finished with Egyptian linen; Scottish organic handmade soaps, handmade shortbread and fluffy bathrobes sit in each room as the standard. Plasma flat-screen televisions are fitted throughout and most rooms have wireless internet access, though the age and construction of the building mean wifi coverage varies and the property recommends checking at booking. Radio reception is limited across the area.

The dining room inside the main house works as a destination table for non-residents driving in from Helensburgh and the wider Argyll coast as much as it serves the hotel’s own guests. The kitchen runs Scottish seasonal produce in a country-house register, plates working for light lunch through to a fuller evening dinner, with pre-dinner drinks in the loch-view lounge as part of the standard experience. Bookings are advisable for evening service, particularly through the summer.

Bookings by phone on 01436 842283, by email to reservations@knockderryhouse.co.uk, or via the Knockderry House website. Shore Road, Cove, Argyll and Bute, G84 0NX. Loch Lomond is twenty minutes east via the A814 and the A82 connection at Tarbet.