Our Scottish Hotel: Andy and Kim Murray's Channel 4 series on the Cromlix makeover
Channel 4 has commissioned Our Scottish Hotel, a three-part series following Andy and Kim Murray's transformation of Cromlix, their country house hotel near Dunblane. Here is what we know.
Andy and Kim Murray are opening the doors of Cromlix to television cameras. Channel 4 has commissioned Our Scottish Hotel, a three-part observational series following the couple as they take on a major transformation of their country house hotel near Dunblane, and it is due to air in December.
The series runs to three one-hour episodes and was filmed over almost a year by Rogan Scotland, with behind-the-scenes access to the Murrays and the team of around 80 people who keep the five-star hotel running. At its centre is a building project that added a new wing with two new restaurants, and the cameras follow staff as they look after guests while sharing the estate with builders, before the hotel closes for several months for the major structural work.
For Kim Murray, the project marked a new direction for Cromlix in fine dining and wellness, and working on it side by side was new territory for the couple. "Andy and I haven't worked on anything together before, so that was a fascinating process," she said, describing it as a learning curve. Emily Shields, the commissioning editor at Channel 4, said the series "offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes of a business where no detail is overlooked."
Viewers can expect more than bricks and mortar. The programme also takes in the hotel's plans for food and wellness, the artworks by David Shrigley that hang on its walls, and a search for new sources of water beneath the estate, so there is plenty for the three episodes to get through.
For anyone tempted to see the results for themselves, Cromlix is a working hotel and its new spaces are already open. The Murrays have run the Victorian property for more than a decade, and the refurbishment brought Cradle, an intimate fine dining tasting room in the main house, alongside the Garden Room, a bistro in the new glass-fronted extension, as well as a woodland wellness retreat in the grounds.
With a broadcast date still to be announced, the series should offer a rather different view of Andy Murray from the one tennis fans know, this time juggling builders, guests and a hotel team of 80.
Our Scottish Hotel will air on Channel 4.
Images: Channel 4.
