The Hopetoun Arms, Hotel in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
The Hopetoun Arms is a small hotel on the main street of Leadhills, a rural village set in the Lowther Hills of South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The stone building holds a bar, a restaurant, a lounge, and a handful of guest rooms, with a garden where guests can sit outside.
The building is listed as a protected historic structure and appears in old travel writing, including Dorothy Wordsworth's account of a journey through Scotland from the early 1800s. It started as a simple inn where travelers and local workers stopped to rest and eat.
The hotel sits in Leadhills, a small village with a strong mining past that visitors can still trace today. A heritage trail nearby leads to places like an old curfew bell once used to mark miners' shift changes and the oldest subscription library in the UK.
The hotel is best reached by car, as Leadhills is a small rural village with no major public transport links. Guests who need step-free access should look for the ground-floor room and the side entrance, which are designed to help those with limited mobility.
The Hopetoun Arms is said to be the highest residential hotel in Scotland, sitting at over 1,200 feet (around 370 meters) above sea level in the Lowther Hills. That elevation also means very dark skies at night, making it a good spot to look at stars away from city light.
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