St Andrew Square / New Town

Gleneagles Townhouse

★★★★★

Gleneagles Townhouse brings the polish of Scotland's most famous country resort into the heart of the New Town. It occupies 37 to 39 St Andrew Square, a magnificent Victorian building designed by David Bryce, with sculpture by Alexander Handyside Ritchie, for the British Linen Company, which later became part of the Bank of Scotland. After a long restoration, it opened as a hotel and members' club in 2022, and it has quickly become one of the most talked-about addresses in Edinburgh. There are 33 bedrooms, each individually designed with references to the building's banking heritage and Scottish craft, in four main categories: compact Nook Rooms at the back, House Bedrooms, Town Bedrooms with city views, and Master Bedrooms facing St Andrew Square with free-standing baths. The palette is warm and refined — rich woods, soft colours, tweed and wool, good art — and the beds and bathrooms are excellent. The heart of the building is the former banking hall, now The Spence, an all-day restaurant under a spectacular domed glass ceiling, where house guests get preferential access for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On the roof, a bar and terrace offers views that, as the hotel likes to say, were previously enjoyed only by the statues on the parapet — across the New Town to the castle, the Old Town skyline and the Firth of Forth. Guests also have access to some of the members' club spaces, including the rooftop, a gym and wellness facilities. The location is as central as it gets in the New Town: St Andrew Square has the airport tram stop, Waverley station is a few minutes' walk, and Multrees Walk, Princes Street and Calton Hill are all close.

Living in it: the Townhouse feels like a stylish private house with superb service, rather than a traditional grand hotel. Staff are relaxed and attentive, and the atmosphere is lively in the public spaces in the evening, when members and diners fill the bars and the Spence. The rooms are a calm retreat by comparison. Choose carefully: the Nook Rooms are smaller and face the rear without views, and some lower categories have showers only, so if a view or a bath matters, book a Town or Master Bedroom. The building is a protected historic structure, so room layouts vary.

Base math: the airport tram stops on St Andrew Square, a huge advantage on arrival and departure. Waverley and the Balmoral corner are a few minutes away, the Old Town is a walk across the North Bridge, and George Street, Multrees Walk's luxury shops and the restaurants of the New Town are on the doorstep. During Edinburgh's Christmas, the market in East Princes Street Gardens and the George Street ice rink are close. The square itself is a calm green space in the middle of the city.

Price and fit: rates are firmly in the luxury tier and rise in August, December and on big event weekends; the 5% visitor levy applies to the first five nights. The Townhouse suits couples and design-minded travellers who want a modern, sociable luxury hotel rather than period grandeur, and anyone planning to combine Edinburgh with a stay at the Gleneagles resort itself in Perthshire. Book the Spence for at least one meal even if you stay elsewhere: the banking hall alone is worth seeing.