Management G1 Group | Opening 2001 Floor count 10 | |
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Owner G1 GroupOriginally the reception to The Scotsman Newspaper, the new hotel retains many of the original features. | ||
The Scotsman Hotel Edinburgh opened in 2001 in the Edwardian (1905) building which had housed The Scotsman newspaper for nearly a century. The hotel is located on North Bridge between the Royal Mile and Princes Street, thereby straddling Edinburgh’s Medieval Old Town and Georgian New Town.
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Ownership
The Scotsman is part of JJW Hotels & Resorts and was purchased by Sheikh M.B.I Al Jaber for £63 million in 2006. In August 2007, JJW acquired The Eton Collection.
Building history
In the 1900s the North Bridge running between the New and Old Town's of Edinburgh was widened and as part of this expansion a 190 foot high tower was built, into which The Scotsman newspaper moved their offices. The building cost around £500,000 and after the rest of the North Bridge extension was completed teamed with the Carlton directly opposite, it formed an imposing entrance to the Old Town.
The direct access from Market Street to the building was an ideal distribution outlet for the papers to be packed directly onto the trains at Edinburgh Waverley Rail Station straight from the printing house that took up the entire basement. The middle floors of the building were originally used for the editorial offices. The current penthouse used to be the Pigeon lofts. The site now occupied by the North Bridge Brasserie originally held the reception and trading rooms where bartering over advertising took place.
In 2001 the Newspaper moved to their own purpose built offices in Holyrood and the building was renovated into The Scotsman Hotel
Ghosts
In a link to its time as former offices of the Edinburgh Evening News, the building is reported to be "haunted by a host of ghosts, including a phantom printer and a phantom forger."