Three Nights at the Burn
Access to the Burn must surely count as one of the delights of membership at Goodenough College. It’s worth recounting the history of this pretty little place – a place which, after our visit these past days, has led us to hatch scheming plans to take it over by this time next year.
The Burn is nestled in the Angus area of Scotland, bordering the North Sea, south of Aberdeen and north of Dundee, and about 1.5 miles away from the tiny hamlet of Edzell. You do feel rather privileged and distinguished, at first entering its sprawling estate through a narrow gate marked “Private”. It then takes you a full three minutes in the car, meandering through forested grounds, before reaching the historic house.
The Burn was built in 1791 but has since been modernized thoroughly, with an early 20th century feel to it currently. It now features large drawing rooms in the ground floor, plus kitchen and dining rooms, with 18 guest bedrooms upstairs, including the yellow one assigned to me.
The Burn, we’re told, gets its name from the Scottish word for a river or stream, and indeed, there’s a fast flowing river right next to its grounds, with whiskey-coloured water gushing past. A nice foot trail also follows the path of the river.
Before it was taken over by the Goodenough College, the house was owned by the Russell family, who bequeathed it to the College in honour of their son, James, who was killed in action in Italy during the Second World War. What a nice touch – serving to open up this wonderful place for the enjoyment for so many generations of students and scholars since. We were told that they managed the place with up to 50 servants, while a mere 11 staff keep the Burn running now.
So, besides roaming around Scotland, we spent quite a bit of time at the Burn as well, wandering around its grounds, or just lounging around, waiting for the gong which announces that food was to be served.
The bursar at the Burn intoned that he does not run the place like a hotel. He chooses to see it, instead, as a home away from London for members of Goodenough College. Fair enough. But we felt that perhaps he could be more entrepreneurial. There is money to be made from this place, which led us to develop wild and fanciful plans for buying it over with the SSG’s non-imaginary millions.
So we’ve decided. We willl expand and enhance the total Burn experience. The HM will take care of events and entertainment. SW will run the kitchen and provide evening music. GNK will be in charge of security. BP will handle the finances and accounting, and I will manage administration and publicity. And we’ll have Sleeping Beauty be a sleeping partner.
This was a bit of a private joke, but given how boh liao we all were, it brought just quite a bit of mirth and jollity.
The Burn is nestled in the Angus area of Scotland, bordering the North Sea, south of Aberdeen and north of Dundee, and about 1.5 miles away from the tiny hamlet of Edzell. You do feel rather privileged and distinguished, at first entering its sprawling estate through a narrow gate marked “Private”. It then takes you a full three minutes in the car, meandering through forested grounds, before reaching the historic house.
The Burn was built in 1791 but has since been modernized thoroughly, with an early 20th century feel to it currently. It now features large drawing rooms in the ground floor, plus kitchen and dining rooms, with 18 guest bedrooms upstairs, including the yellow one assigned to me.
The Burn, we’re told, gets its name from the Scottish word for a river or stream, and indeed, there’s a fast flowing river right next to its grounds, with whiskey-coloured water gushing past. A nice foot trail also follows the path of the river.
Before it was taken over by the Goodenough College, the house was owned by the Russell family, who bequeathed it to the College in honour of their son, James, who was killed in action in Italy during the Second World War. What a nice touch – serving to open up this wonderful place for the enjoyment for so many generations of students and scholars since. We were told that they managed the place with up to 50 servants, while a mere 11 staff keep the Burn running now.
So, besides roaming around Scotland, we spent quite a bit of time at the Burn as well, wandering around its grounds, or just lounging around, waiting for the gong which announces that food was to be served.
The bursar at the Burn intoned that he does not run the place like a hotel. He chooses to see it, instead, as a home away from London for members of Goodenough College. Fair enough. But we felt that perhaps he could be more entrepreneurial. There is money to be made from this place, which led us to develop wild and fanciful plans for buying it over with the SSG’s non-imaginary millions.
So we’ve decided. We willl expand and enhance the total Burn experience. The HM will take care of events and entertainment. SW will run the kitchen and provide evening music. GNK will be in charge of security. BP will handle the finances and accounting, and I will manage administration and publicity. And we’ll have Sleeping Beauty be a sleeping partner.
This was a bit of a private joke, but given how boh liao we all were, it brought just quite a bit of mirth and jollity.
4 Comments:
Wah. Looks fab! Who is Sleeping Beauty? DH
Sleping beauty aka the panic @ the normal staying at LH225
sw
Hey, what about our plans of buying over Fettercairn's whisky distilery for me to run and hostile buyover of the first ever deep-fried Mars' bar shop in Stonehaven that was close? Perhaps, that should be phase 2 of our investment scheme (or rather SSG's).
sw
Thanks for bringing back some memories! Are there still all the carvings on the path down to the river?
ex LoHo 2001/2002 rm 246
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