Inverlochy Castle

Queen Victoria spent a week at Inverlochy Castle in 1873, sketching and painting, and wrote in her diary that she never saw a lovelier or more romantic spot. She saw it a tower short: the house was ten years old, and the four-storey tower came in 1889. It stands among woods at the foot of Ben Nevis, three miles north of Fort William, all turrets and battlements above a sweep of lawn, with a loch of its own on the estate. Inside, the castle turns country house: patterned blue armchairs drawn up to a chess set, an arch through to a bed under a red throw, and in one bathroom a copper bath on a marble step, the hills in the sash window beside it. Five minutes' walk away, the old stable block holds the Walled Garden rooms, with terraces or balconies over clipped box hedges.

Recommended for couples who want a castle with a serious dinner in it, and for families whose children can sit through one, or are content not to. Seasgair, Gaelic for warm and comfortable, is overseen by Michel Roux Jr: champagne and canapés in the Great Hall at seven, then one seating of five courses at £145 a head, with gentlemen asked to wear a jacket. The grounds take care of the day: rowing on the loch, or the billiards room when it rains, with the Nevis Range gondola four miles off by car and Glencoe twenty. Children are welcome at the table if they are comfortable with the formality; otherwise there is a £16 children's menu by room service and a sitter at £30 an hour. Out on the estate there is also tomahawk throwing, and the jacket is asked for only at dinner.