| Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by matth1j at 14:06, 27th August 2025 |     |
From the Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/08b5b69a41f19515
The estate features a narrow gauge railway – which runs through part of the grounds – complete with platform, ticket office, engine shed and joiner’s shop.
| Re: Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 14:25, 27th August 2025 | |
I would argue that Ayton Castle is rather more in England than Scotland. 'Scottish Borders', maybe - but Berwick-upon-Tweed is in England.
| Re: Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by stuving at 15:11, 27th August 2025 | |
I would argue that Ayton Castle is rather more in England than Scotland. 'Scottish Borders', maybe - but Berwick-upon-Tweed is in England. 
Ayton, and Eyemouth, are in Berwickshire - north of the town of Berwick on Tweed - so certainly in Scotland.
| Re: Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by Phil at 16:10, 27th August 2025 | |
It's definitely in Scotland. I've been there. My daughter lived, worked (and got married a couple of years back) on the nearby Duns Castle estate which likewise is just over the border from Berwick.
I can well see how the confusion arose though. Some hotels do seem to like to claim they are in one place when in fact they are in another. There's one that's located less than a mile (as the crow flies, anyway) from Melksham station which at one time had "near Bath" as a strapline on their website, and no mention at all of Melksham; although I see it's now moderated that to "only 30 minutes from Bath and the Cotswolds". Funny how it doesn't mention "20 minutes from Trow-Vegas" as well, but there you go....
| Re: Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by matth1j at 17:12, 27th August 2025 | |
There's one that's located less than a mile (as the crow flies, anyway) from Melksham station which at one time had "near Bath" as a strapline on their website, and no mention at all of Melksham...
£500 per room per night is definitely Bath pricing 
(ok that is over Christmas, and it is a nice place - recently changed hands I believe https://beechfieldhouse.co.uk/offers/christmas-2025/ )
| Re: Scottish castle with miniature railway on the market for £3.25m Posted by grahame at 18:19, 27th August 2025 | |
There's one that's located less than a mile (as the crow flies, anyway) from Melksham station which at one time had "near Bath" as a strapline on their website, and no mention at all of Melksham...
£500 per room per night is definitely Bath pricing (ok that is over Christmas, and it is a nice place - recently changed hands I believe https://beechfieldhouse.co.uk/offers/christmas-2025/ )
Lisa and I ran a hotel in Melksham ... that was mentioned in most of our marketing because people in most of our markets were coming for what's here in Melksham. HOWEVER ... for certain business "less than 10 miles from Bath" was what brought some of the weekend bookings. It then usually lead to the question "how do I get to the park and ride" with our answer "don't - leave your car here and catch the bus from right outside".
Beechfield House is an interesting story. It was up for sale in when we bought our current place 20 years ago, and we took a look at it. It was clearly in need of a lot of work and TLC in those days, and discussions with the people who would have been giving us financial support made it clear that without UK hospitality experience they could not back us. We would almost certainly have concluded it was wrong for us anyway.
The cost of a Christmas booking is - for most hotels - not a regular like-for-like comparison with rates for normal days and if often very much more inclusive than rates away from special public holiday times.
Beechfield House had a massive amount done by the folks who bought it soon after we looked - we have admire from a distance how well they have done. They sold in on recently.
