Hotel Indigo Edinburgh - Princes Street

Hotel Indigo Edinburgh - Princes Street reopened in December 2016 after Cairn Group converted the Victorian former Royal British Hotel, opposite the Scott Monument, into IHG's boutique brand. The 64-room hotel keeps its Category B-listed 1890s shell while leaning its interiors on Scottish heritage themes, with a ground-floor restaurant and cocktail bar.

The place

The hotel occupies 20 Princes Street, opposite the Scott Monument in Edinburgh's city centre, on the boundary between the Old and New Towns with views toward Edinburgh Castle.

The concept

The building opened in 1899 as the Royal British Hotel, a Category B-listed Victorian property built in 1896-1898 from red Peterhead granite, Sicilian marble and Prudham-quarry stone. It operated as a hotel under that name and others for decades before Cairn Group acquired it and, as part of a wider £101 million refinancing package with HSBC, carried out a multi-million-pound conversion into Hotel Indigo Edinburgh - Princes Street, IHG's boutique brand, reopening in December 2016 — a genuine flag change on a building that had never stopped being a hotel. The design leans on Scottish heritage: portraits of Scottish authors, poets and artists through the public areas, Harris Tweed soft furnishings in the 64 guestrooms, and a pastel-grey palette referencing the surrounding New Town architecture.

Dining & wellness

Twenty Princes Street, a grill and smokehouse restaurant built around seasonal, local produce, anchors the ground floor, alongside Juniper, a cocktail bar.