Bonnie Berwick: history and good living on the Scottish coast

18.12.2023 - 15:10 / theguardian.com / Royal Mile

The first surprise is that a half-hour trip by train from Edinburgh to North Berwick is really as far as you need to go for a taste of Scotland that is elemental and remote, a place of windswept beaches, stunning coastal walks and panoramic views. The West Coast and the Highlands may be more extreme, but then so is the journey to get there. This, by contrast, is an easier but no less enjoyable adventure.

We take a sleeper train from London’s Euston, tip out on to Edinburgh’s Waverley platform from our couchette, a little crumpled but refreshed. Checking in our luggage at the station, we give ourselves a couple of hours to wander along the Royal Mile, ending at the National Gallery where we lose ourselves in a maze of rooms, the standout being the death masks in the phrenology collection, including Voltaire and Keats; each eyelash and nose pore preserved in morbidly fascinating detail. After a delicious vegan breakfast in their café, we’re back on the train by midday.

Leaving Edinburgh behind, the sky expands, the horizon stretches and then the sea appears. The second surprise is our holiday home. Looking through a set of iron gates and up a long driveway, you might assume a grand Gothic pile would greet you at the end of it. Yet Leuchie Walled Garden is its polar opposite, a midcentury wonder, low-slung, sleek, geometric and gleaming white.

Designed in 1960 by the architect James Dunbar-Nasmith for the Dalrymple family (historian and author William Dalrymple spent his childhood here), it’s the sort of home you would expect to find hidden in the Hollywood Hills, but here it is, a modernist gem dropped into a Victorian walled garden in a corner of East Lothian.

Renovated three years ago, its decor has an even more contemporary edge; a mix of timber and glass coexists happily with the family’s collection of old books, objets d’art and antique furniture. The heart of the house is the open-plan living area where 18th-century family portraits preside over an Ercol-style dining table and chairs and an expanse of floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the lawn. Wherever you look it’s a disconcerting mix of Mad Men meets Scottish baronial, but somehow the combination works brilliantly.

We’re a large-ish party of three couples with assorted older children, but we barely touch the sides – there are six bedrooms and bathrooms as well as a second kitchen – which is why it would work well for bigger family get-togethers and special occasions. The high-walled garden it overlooks is sheltered with its own microclimate, full of ancient trees and plants, and ideal for younger children who can’t wander too far. There’s a tennis court, too, and on rainy days snooker, table tennis and darts.

Once you tear yourself away,