Harvieston Hall Estate Rooms

We had a great time staying here with the family, and the place is huge with lots of spots to cook, eat, sit, rest and take pictures. Just go in knowing it’s an old castle still being worked on, with an intriguing history. The floors creak, the windows don’t open, there’s no TV and the Wi-Fi doesn’t work. It might even be a little haunted. If that sort of place is your thing, I’d recommend it.

After ten hours on the road, all we wanted was a shower and a bed. Instead, the room was dirty, with bits of ceiling on the floor and a broken bathroom mirror. Nobody was around to speak to, so we left straight away. There was nowhere nearby we could find at that hour without paying a lot, so we spent the freezing night in the car with the engine running.

It’s a big, rustic, gothic place that can fit a group of 15, and there’s loads of space. The kitchen is beautifully renovated and very well equipped with utensils, though I wouldn’t touch the sugar, tea or coffee because they seemed years old. The living area gets lovely light from the skylights. The windows, though, have cobwebs, dead flies and what could be unnamed types of spiders. Our Airbnb booking was disappointing. We’d booked the room above, but were double booked and put in the apartment downstairs instead. It had a big kitchen, dining and living area, plus one double bedroom and a room with two single beds. The place was dusty and old. Getting in was confusing because the entrance was marked as a fire exit and had a metal bar door we had to pry open. There’s only one small toilet for apartment 1, so a large group might want to bring a portable one. At night there were creaks, mice scratching around, and footsteps overhead. If noises or ghosts keep you awake, this might not be for you. I was too scared to sleep, which is why it’s a 3/5 rather than a 5/5. Still, if you like old mansion vibes and bring a big group, I’d go back. I’m definitely less terrified with other people around.

There’s plenty of room for a group, but the house was extremely cold when we arrived in February 2025. We knew to bring logs for the wood burners, and some were provided, but the rooms are huge and it took hours to warm them even with the shutters closed. We expected some background heat, but the central heating was only on from 6pm to 8pm. The oil radiators didn’t help much either. The 1 kW one in a dining room that seats over 30 people made no real difference. The mossy wooden steps to the entrance were dangerously slippery. There were four or five steps, no handrail, and the bottom one was one and a half steps down onto frozen mud, which was treacherous with bags and baskets of logs. The place wasn’t dirty, but it felt tired. There were receipts and clothing tags on my floor, so the cleaning didn’t seem as thorough as I’d expect. One person in our group was very worried about fire safety. There were no floor plans or escape route directions, some rooms were inside other rooms, and we saw no obvious emergency lighting. With all the corridors in this big old house, getting out in a fire could be confusing. She also couldn’t see a Short Term Lettings licence displayed anywhere obvious and questioned whether the place was compliant. The building itself is grand and spacious, as advertised, but the interior, grounds and parking areas don’t feel grand.