Firefighters have tackled a roof blaze at the former Letham Grange resort near Arbroath.
The blaze broke out in the main building of the one-time luxury hotel around 9am on Thursday.
Residents of the estate, near Colliston, a few miles north of Arbroath, raised the alarm after seeing smoke coming from the west corner of the one-time mansion.
A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said two appliances from Arbroath and a height appliance from Dundee’s Macalpine Road station dealt with the incident.
Fire crews remained on the scene for around two hours, but serious damage to the building was averted due to the quick response.
The cause of the blaze is not known at this stage, although it is understood workmen have been in the building in recent weeks.
Once a popular hotel with a curling rink and a golf club tagged the “Augusta of the North”, Letham Grange was at the centre of as lengthy ownership wrangle following the collapse of a development company in 2002.
Despite the hotel closure, golfers kept the two highly-rated courses operational until taking the reluctant decision late last year to disband the club and shut them down.
The 15-year ownership dispute over the Victorian mansion house and its courses was one of the longest-running and most complex tussles in Scottish legal history.
After years of litigation, a 2018 settlement had been reached between the liquidator of Letham Grange Development Company, the company’s former Taiwanese owner Peter Liu and its most recent owners, PI Ltd.
The move resulted in Mr Liu regaining control of the assets through another of his companies.
