BURNS Night might look a little different this year. Thanks again, coronavirus. Still, here’s a memory of how it once was. With added pipers.

Gallery owners Iwan and Manuela Wirth first visited Braemar in 2010 and fell in love with the landscape. In 2014, they purchased the Fife Arms with the ambition of restoring the Victorian-era hotel to its former glory. They spent five years transforming it into a luxury destination, commissioning Scottish artisans and craftspeople to work on its interiors and bringing artworks from their collection to cover the walls.

The restoration is chronicled in a new book published by Phaidon, from which this image is taken.

“The Fife Arms is a world enclosed,” the Wirths suggest in the introduction. “It is a place to get lost indoors – in the thousands of art objects and natural specimens, the delicious food that changes with the seasons, the sumptuous but playfully designed bed chambers, and the lively fireside and barstool conversations that are as long and beguiling as the walks for which Scots are duly famed.”

The Herald:

Taken from The Fife Arms, published by Phaidon, priced £90. Photograph © Sim Canetty-Clarke