WORLD-CLASS athletes and a leading farmer are among the Scottish recipients of major honours announced in the Queen’s New Year list.

Andy Murray rounds off a golden year as he receives a knighthood in the New Year’s honours list, which also recognises rowing star Katherine Grainger and wheelchair tennis champion Gordon Reid.

Britain’s top egg producer, John Campbell, founder and chairman of the Glenrath Farms empire, has also been knighted for his services to farming and charitable service to entrepreneurship.

Read more: The New Year's Honours list in full

For Dunblane’s Murray the accolade tops off a special 12 months which saw him win a second Wimbledon title, retain his Olympic crown and named BBC Sports Personality of the Year for the third time.

The tennis player, who also became a father in February, finished the season as world number one.

Murray, who is a Unicef UK ambassador, receives the knighthood for services to tennis and charity.

Britain’s most decorated female Olympic athlete, Dr Katherine Grainger, said being made a dame for services to sport and charity has given her a “new standard” to step up to.

She said being awarded the title is an “enormous honour” which she did not really expect and has opened up a new road following her retirement from rowing.

Grainger became the most- decorated female British Olympic athlete ever on winning silver at Rio this year.

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She narrowly missed out on gold in the women’s double sculls with Vicky Thornley, having returned to the sport less than two years previously after completing a Phd.

The Glasgow-born Olympian now has five medals, including gold from London 2012 and silver from each Olympics dating back to Sydney 2000.

She said: “What is lovely when you hear the titles and the names of the New Year Honours list, if anything it makes you feel you have to step up again.

“It is something to live up to – it is almost like a new standard.

“Although I have done a lot in my own sport and achieved a lot, hopefully been an inspiration in that way, but the road doesn’t end there.

“It is almost like a new road opens up and there are still opportunities to inspire and change for good, that is what the challenge is next and that is really exciting.”

She said having no specific plan for the future for the first time in decades is “quite disconcerting”, but she hopes to increase her charity work.

Grainger said she did not struggle to keep the news secret and told her family when they were all together at Christmas.

She said: “It has been easy to keep in some ways because it is an enormous honour and one I did not really expect, so in a way by not telling anyone, it didn’t feel real yet.

“The lovely thing is I have a wonderful family and very, very good friends around me.

“They keep my feet very firmly on the ground and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I would not want anything else, it is such a lovely honour to get.”

Mother Liz Grainger said the family plans to celebrate with “lots and lots of champagne” adding that her daughter “is leaving women’s rowing in a very strong position”.

Read more: The New Year's Honours list in full

Leading farmer John Campbell, who has been knighted, has spearheaded the drive away from battery egg production and into welfare-friendly free range and barn systems. His Peebles-based family business is now the UK’s largest egg producer.

Wheelchair tennis star Gordon Reid has said his MBE was the “icing on the cake” to a wonderful year.

The 25-year-old receives the honour for services to wheelchair tennis.

It rounds off a year which saw him win grand slam singles titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and doubles titles at the French Open and Wimbledon. At the Paralympics in Rio he took singles gold and a silver medal in the doubles, and ended 2016 as world number one.