James Meston, a merchant at Bankhead Keig received a lease of land near Kemnay Village at Whitsunday 1872. This was a triangular piece of land lying to the west of the Alford Section of the Great North of Scotland Railway immediately north of the bridge at the railway station.
It was bounded on the other two sides by the road to the farm of Alehousewell or Allisonwell, and on the third side by the base of the Kaimhills. The area thus enclosed amounted to just under three quarters of an acre and the rent payable was £4. 10. 6 (£4.52) per year. What set this lease apart from previous leases in the village was that part of the building could be used as a general merchant's shop and relative accommodation excluding the sale of excisable liquors.
The building erected on the site was known as Donview House and part of it was used as the merchant's shop. Meston assigned the lease on 2nd August 1876 to Andrew Petrie who carried on the business until we read that on 24 November 1887, he applied for a hotel licence. The lease was assigned to James Henry in March 1889.
Born in Rayne around 1861 James Henry could be described as 'a pushing fellow all his life'. By the age of twenty five he had already worked at Manar near Inverurie for four years to the satisfaction of his employer, had been a baker at Monymusk and was about to embark in a career as a public house keeper in Forfar. Always wishing to better himself, he applied for the property in Kemnay when Andrew Petrie vacated it.
Donview House was situated quite near the railway line and another building was erected slightly further down the brae towards the farm. James Henry demolished Donview House and erected the present hotel building which carries the date 1902 on the north gable. His monogram also appears above the bar door.
Little is known of James Henry's later life but his daughter Amelia died in Lossiemouth in 1920 and is buried in Kemnay churchyard alongside her sister Evelyn who died in 1895. James Henry's father, also James stayed in Birchfield for several years at the start of the 20th century and it is believed that James junior may have suffered some financial embarrassment following his heavy investiture in the hotel.
In the years prior to the second world war the Burnett Arms Hotel was well known throughout the county and beyond and was patronised by business folk from Aberdeen and beyond, many of whom took houses in the village and travelled to town by train throughout the summer. At that time fishing on the Don was much sought after and many came to the hotel for a fishing holiday, the proprietor leasing water from the estate.
With the opening up of the package holiday business, tastes changed and the number of people coming to the village on holiday decreased. One of the popular items of these long gone days was the picture postcard, very few of which are seen around these days.