An urban outstation of the famous five-star Perthshire hotel, the Gleneagles Townhouse is located at 37-39 St. Andrew Square in the New Town of Edinburgh. The townhouse represents a 33-room luxury hotel with a restaurant and rooftop bar and terrace, with fine views over the city, together with a members' club, discreet private dining facilities, and a gym and wellness studio.
The hotel opened in 2022 in a three storey former bank building with a grand imperial facade, featuring channeled ashlar at the ground-floor level and six massive fluted Corinthian columns each crowned by enormous statues by sculptor Alexander Handyside Ritchie (1804-70) representing navigation, commerce, manufacture, science, art and agriculture. The detail includes an elaborate carved stone frieze, ballustrades on the first floor and at roof-level, and balconies beneath windows on the second floor. The design echoes Palladio's Loggia del Capitaniato in Vicenza (Italy). It was restored by the owner's own Ennismore Design Studio, who have rejuvenated the building without losing its Georgian style. They have created a restaurant and bar in the glass-domed former banking hall, a gym in the original basement vault, and restored original features such as the Governors' window, a fine composition in stained glass by William Wilson (1953), grand staircase, a Minton-tiled floor, light fittings and a war memorial in the reception area that commemorates the 68 bank employees who fell in the First World War.
Originally built as a New Town mansion for George Ramsay, 8th Earl of Dalhousie (1730-87), it was sold to the British Linen Bank by his son in 1807 on the death of Elizabeth Ramsay, the 8th Earl's wife. In 1846, the bank redeveloped the house along with neighbouring properties, using architect David Bryce (1803-76), to become their Head Office and the building we see today. Sadly, it was relegated to become a rather grand branch office when the British Linen Bank was taken over by the Bank of Scotland in 1969. That institution had an even grander Headquarters just a quarter-mile (0.5 km) to the south at the top of the Mound.
The British Linen Bank had grown out of the British Linen Company, established in 1746 on the initiative of Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton (1692 - 1766). Fletcher was Chairman of the Linen Committee of the Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures in Scotland, a body he helped create to improve industry in Scotland.
The building was Category A-listed in 1965 owing to its architectural importance.
