Hotel turns into rescue centre

John Wallace and the "girls"

By Cara Sulieman

THREE little piggies destined for the chop after being sold to a Scots hotel so customers could enjoy home reared bacon have had a surprise stay of execution – after becoming firm favourites of staff and guests.

The Dryburgh Abbey Hotel in St Boswell’s, Melrose, bought the pigs – nicknamed ‘The Girls’ – at a local butchery to be reared then slaughtered on the 10-acre estate to help with ingredients for their speciality dishes, including smoked bacon foam.

But now financial controller Mark Wallace and colleagues at the 38-bed hotel set on the banks of the River Tweed are having second thoughts after getting too attached to the animals over the past 11-weeks.

So much so they have also now ‘rescued’ a clutch of 22 chickens from a battery farm that have been laying dozens of fresh eggs every day as they breathe new life into the walled gardens.