The Scots station hotels built to serve a golden age of rail

The Cruden Bay Hotel, a lavish Victorian railway hotel, linked to the nearby railway by an electric tram for seamless travel, was intended to put the Aberdeenshire town on the tourist map.

Instead, as the golden age of rail travel ground to a halt, it would flop terribly.

Before long, its spectacular rooms were cleared, and its walls turned to rubble.

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Now long gone, it was just one of countless hotels built to serve a golden age of rail – many of them towering Victorian palaces built with no expense spared to serve an emerging trend for tourism.

Often just yards from the station platform - yet cunningly sound-proofed against the rattle and clang of the trains outside – they combined an air of luxury with convenience. Weary travellers simply had to step from their carriage, tip the porter a few shillings to carry their bags to their room, and, within moments be settled in the fine surroundings of their plush room.

Such was the case in June 1886 for the first arrivals at the spectacular Ayr Station Hotel, Glasgow and South Western Railway Company’s newest addition to a hotel portfolio that included Glasgow’s St Enoch Station Hotel and another at Dumfries.

Designed in the style of a French Renaissance chateau and built using red sandstone from the local Ballochmyle quarry, there was “nothing superficial or unsubstantial about it,” according to one newspaper report from the time.

Once the jewel in Ayr’s crown, eventually tourists’ tastes would change. As years passed, the hotel’s interior faded,  shrubs sprouted from the roof, and gates were locked.

Golfers at Cruden Bay (Image: Getty)

Now, long abandoned, swathed in scaffolding and having just endured yet another fire, fears are growing for its future and whether it, too, may be lost forever.

As well as the irreplaceable demise of glorious Victorian architecture, that would also spell the end of one of the few tangible links to a particular point in social history, when better wages and conditions brought holidays for workers  just as railway networks expanded.

For a while, rail travel was all the rage and station hotels were the pick of places to stay.

“There was a romance to rail travel,” says Ben Dewfield-Oakley, Conservation Officer at SAVE Britain’s Heritage which has been campaigning to save the Ayr hotel.

“Many station hotels appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the growth of railways enabled domestic tourism to really begin.

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“They were built by railway companies as part of an integrated system that we don’t have today, and they were used like a marketing tool – they were the railway company’s ‘calling card’.”

Railway companies featured the hotels they built on posters and adverts, luring travellers to explore previously hard to reach parts of the country.

Travelling to Dunoon’s station hotel for a golf break, or to the Highland spa town of Strathpeffer and its gleaming white station hotel for one of its acclaimed ‘peat baths’, was suddenly on the table.

Station hotels popped up across the country: from Kyle of Lochalsh station hotel on the west coast, to Aberdeen’s enormous Italian Renaissance style Palace Hotel, accessible from the railway platform, with guests’ luggage carried between hotel and trains for free.

Originally built in 1874 for a firm of milliners and later taken over first by the Great North of Scotland Railway and then LNER, the railway booking office, waiting rooms and passenger lift were incorporated within the building.

The Balmoral in Edinburgh

It was already past its prime when in 1941 a devastating fire spread from its grill room to its upper floors, killing five chambermaids.

Perhaps in a grim warning of what might befall Ayr Station Hotel, by 1950, one of Aberdeen’s grandest buildings was no more. Today a Travelodge stands in its place.

Elsewhere, station hotels were not just for rail travellers; they were a place for locals to meet and be seen.

No more so than in Edinburgh, where two have been eyeballing each other for more than 120 years.

At one end of Princes Street, the Scottish Baronial style North British Hotel – better known now as The Balmoral – overlooks the bustle of Waverley Station where most modern commuters are oblivious to its hidden service lift just yards from its busy concourse.

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Porters from the hotel would swarm arriving trains, relieving passengers of luggage which was loaded onto brass trolleys and into the lift to arrive in guests’ rooms before they had even had time to check in.

At the street’s west end, the Louis XV style 205-room Caledonian Hotel, ‘the Caley’, opened straight on to the concourse of Princes Street Railway Station.

The station closed in 1965 but rather than a death knell for the Caley, it expanded. The station’s cast iron gates are still visible, while the original station clock keeps time inside the hotel.

Both have had their ups and downs, but Edinburgh-based author and broadcaster Roddy Martine, who has written about both, says they have cemented their place in the fabric of Scotland’s capital city.

“They are bookmarks at either end of Princes Street,” he says.

“For many years, The Caledonian was considered rather smart with tremendous glamour, while the North British was more the place for rugby followers to stay.

“Both are beautiful buildings and have had their share of celebrity guests.

“The Caledonian had wonderful film stars and famous people who passed through; Sean Connery, Maria Callais, Marlene Dietrich...

“The Queen Mother stayed in both, but the Caley had Roy Rogers, who was photographed walking his horse, Trigger, up the stairs,” recalls Roddy.

There was enormous competition between the two hotels, he adds.

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“For many years there was just one licensed restaurant in Edinburgh and it closed on a Sunday. So, if diners wanted somewhere to go for dinner or entertainment it was to one of the hotels.

“Eventually everything changed: more restaurants, more hotels. But these two grande dames were able to survive.”

Along with Gleneagles, with its luxurious rooms and countryside setting, the Edinburgh hotels played a key role in helping to lure tourists to Scotland, he adds.

Many station hotels also became familiar places for locals to gather – for a swift drink before heading home, or a meal out.

Jimmy Cawley, uniformed doorman at the old Central Hotel (Image: Newsquest)

Opened in 1907 with accommodation for 550 guests, Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel adjoining Central Station proclaimed itself to be the ‘largest and most luxurious’ hotel in Scotland.

Every possible attention to detail was given: the coffee room’s rich décor in American walnut, ebony and mahogany, the 38ft drawing room, reading room with extensive library, two waiting rooms including one especially fitted for “commercial gentlemen”.

Its top level provided accommodation for staff - well out of sight of guests.

While downstairs, three rooms were set aside just to deal with the hotel’s £6000 collection of silver-plate. Alongside was a dedicated bakehouse, confectioners, wine cellars and an 80 ton accumulator to operate the various hoists and elevators.

Guests ranged from Sir Winston Churchill, US President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. While its place is history is sealed: John Logie Baird first transmitted a broadcast of his newly invented television from the hotel.

“In the 1980s, its dining room, Malmaison, was where you would find Sir Hugh Fraser at one table, Sir Stanley Baxter at the other,” recalls Roddy.

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“At the centre of it all was the head waiter – Luigi – who always knew exactly who you were even though he might only have met you once.”

Some station hotels, however, live on only in memories: St Enoch railway station’s hotel was the first building in Glasgow to boast electric lighting. It was demolished in 1977.

Gone too is the railway hotel at Stromeferry on the south shore of Loch Carron, as is the Dingwall and Skye Railway that it served. Trains connected with steamer services to whizz tourists and locals onwards to Skye and Lewis.

But perhaps one of the greatest losses – so far, at least - is Cruden Bay Hotel.

An extravagant castle-style building on enormous scale, it was the sister hotel to the ill-fated Palace hotel in Aberdeen, heavily marketed as easily accessible for overnight travellers from London’s King’s Cross.

With its 18-hole and nine hole golf courses, sports facilities, easy access to bathing in the sea and delightful rockeries, it was described as “the Brighton of Aberdeenshire” with patrons included prime ministers H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George and Sir Winston Churchill.

Had its fortunes been different, it may have become the Gleneagles or Turnberry of the north east.

Instead, it was demolished in the early 1950s.

According to Roddy, the experience grand station hotels offered guests – from the luxury they exuded to the simplicity of stepping from train straight into hotel lobby – is hard to beat.

“Hospitality is supposed to make you feel special and you were made to feel special when you arrived at these hotels, with someone picking up your bags, wonderful service and attention to detail. That’s what you were paying for,” adds Roddy.

“It’s a lost era. It was a wonderful age - if you had the money to afford it.”