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Article: 24-Hour Room Service: Smiths Gretna Green Scotland's ancient wedding capital is enjoying its most exciting period since the 1753 marriage act prompted a surge of elopements to this sleepy Dumfries and Galloway village.
- Article from:
- Belfast Telegraph
- Article date:
- December 7, 2006
CopyrightCopyright 2006 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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A shiny new 50-room hotel opened this year opposite Gretna
Green's "World-Famous Old Blacksmith's Shop". If you can overlook
that this claims to be a four-star hotel, Smiths does its job very
well. It features all the components of trendy style-bar design
(walnut veneer, living-flame fireplaces, a brasserie that serves
upmarket pub grub) and an all-white penthouse suite with a turntable
bed that spins round from the plasma television on the wall to a
decked balcony.
"I asked the designers to go for a mix of
Footballers' Wives and Dutch movie," explains the hotel's
enthusiastic owner, Alasdair Houston, whose genuinely heartfelt
mission was to provide an unpretentious contemporary hotel ...