A family run hotel in the heart of Speyside


Hello and welcome to the Dowans Hotel in Aberlour. We are the Murray family, owners of a small boutique group called Shawfern Group Limited, and we became the proud owners of the Hotel in 2012. December 18th to be precise. We arrived and saw this grand Victorian mansion set in ornate terraced gardens and commanding views of the beautiful Spey Valley below and…well, it was love at first sight! We immediately set about renovating and upgrading the Hotel, with the help of Chelsea McLaine of Glasgow, with the ambition of giving to the Dowans all the comforts of the twenty-first century without losing any of the building's original Victorian charm.

We now have sixteen en-suite rooms, ranging from cosy singles to eloquently styled king and super-size doubles. Every room has tea and coffee making facilities, a flat-screen television, free Wi-Fi and en-suite bathroom or shower stocked with complimentary toiletries. Our a la carte restaurant, ‘57’, open to both in-house and non-resident guests, offers everyday dining to the highest quality with an ethos centred on locally sourced, seasonal and sustainable produce used in dishes that celebrate traditional Scottish fayre and international cuisines alike. Our two bars, however, are pure Highlands: The Still, stocked with over five hundred single malt whiskies, including, for the connoisseur, a 1940 Macallan and a 1953 Glen Grant, and MBar, with beers from the micro-breweries hereabouts such as Spey Valley, WindSwept and Speyside Craft Brewery.

Whatever your reason for visiting Speyside - whether you're here to relax and enjoy the scenery, sightsee the castles and take the 'Whisky Trail', walk the mountains, fish the Spey, play some golf, enjoy a romantic weekend away, celebrate a special occasion or entertain your business clients - the Murray family invite you to join us here at the Dowans Hotel and let us make your stay all that you could wish for.

And finally, we hope that when you leave a little piece of the Highlands will forever be in your heart.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer,
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.


(My Heart is in the Highlands: Rabbie Burns 1789)