The Edinburgh Grand, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Edinburgh

Banking History Repurposed: St Andrew Square's Apartment Hotel

Edinburgh's New Town has long divided its premium accommodation between large full-service hotels and a smaller tier of apartment-style properties that prize residential scale over lobby spectacle. The Edinburgh Grand, a Luxury Collection Hotel, sits firmly in that second camp, occupying a former National Bank of Scotland building on St Andrew Square whose civic authority is written into every column and cornice. This is the kind of address where the architecture does the heavy lifting before you've unpacked a bag.

What the Luxury Collection brand signals here is worth noting: this is Marriott's portfolio for properties with a verifiable sense of place, positioned above the standard full-service tier. Across that collection, from Muir, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Halifax in Halifax to the historic fabric of Aman Venice in Venice, the consistent logic is that the building itself carries the story. At 42 St Andrew Square, that story is the conversion of a banking landmark into 50 fully equipped serviced apartments, each one retaining physical evidence of the original structure rather than plastering over it.

What the Regulars Actually Return For

Guests who return to the Edinburgh Grand tend not to be people for whom a hotel stay is an end in itself. They are here for the city, the events calendar, the festivals, and the long-form work trips, and the apartment format suits that orientation precisely. Edinburgh's Fringe runs across August and into early September, and the demand pattern it creates pushes every premium property hard. An apartment with a functioning kitchen, separate living space, and a St Andrew Square address becomes considerably more appealing across a ten-day festival stay than a standard hotel room, however well-appointed.

That residential logic also explains the loyalty of extended-stay guests. The property accepts bookings from a single night to a year or more, which places it in a different competitive conversation from properties like the InterContinental Edinburgh The George or Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel, both of which operate as traditional full-service hotels. Guests who want a concierge and a restaurant downstairs will find those properties compelling. Guests who want a base that functions like a well-designed flat in one of Edinburgh's most architecturally coherent squares tend to migrate toward the Grand.

The interiors matter here, and not in a superficial way. The decision to work with the building's existing character rather than neutralise it means that dark wood panelling, brass door handles, original fireplaces, and decorative cornicing appear throughout the apartments as functional features, not museum pieces. That kind of material continuity gives long-stay guests something that newly built properties structurally cannot offer: the feeling that the room has weight and history behind it. Compare this to the sympathetic conversions seen at 100 Princes Street or the maritime renovation logic of the Fingal Hotel and a pattern emerges: Edinburgh's most interesting accommodation plays its heritage directly rather than gesturing toward it.

Location as Practical Infrastructure

St Andrew Square sits at the eastern end of George Street, which means the Edinburgh Grand is within walking distance of the main retail corridor, the principal restaurants along George Street and Hanover Street, and Waverley station, where trains reach Glasgow Queen Street in under an hour. For guests arriving from London on the Avanti or LNER east coast services, Waverley is the terminus, which makes the walk to St Andrew Square a five-to-ten minute proposition with luggage.

The New Town address also positions guests well for the Old Town. The Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, and the cluster of whisky experiences on the Canongate are all reachable on foot across North Bridge or the Mound. Edinburgh is a city where significant terrain change makes logistics non-trivial, but the New Town sits at a relatively navigable altitude that makes walking to most major points of interest a realistic choice. For guests exploring the wider city and country, properties like Gleneagles in Auchterarder or the remote quiet of Langass Lodge in Na H Eileanan An Iar represent credible day trips or extensions, with Edinburgh serving as the urban anchor for a broader Scottish itinerary.

For dining context around St Andrew Square and George Street, our full Edinburgh restaurants guide maps the neighbourhood's options by format and price, which is a more useful resource than any individual recommendation given how quickly the restaurant scene shifts.

The Apartment Format in Edinburgh's Premium Tier

Edinburgh's premium accommodation tier has been developing its apartment-hotel offer for the better part of a decade. Properties like Cheval Old Town Chambers have built a loyal base on a similar logic: self-contained space, central address, flexibility on stay length. The Edinburgh Grand differentiates itself through the Luxury Collection positioning and, more concretely, through a building whose architectural weight is simply not available to purpose-built apartment hotels. The 50-apartment scale keeps the property from feeling institutional, while the Marriott loyalty infrastructure gives frequent travellers a familiar booking and points framework.

Across the UK, the serviced apartment model at this price tier competes with country house hotels and urban full-service properties for the same pool of premium guests. Lime Wood in Lyndhurst, Estelle Manor in North Leigh, and The Newt in Somerset in Castle Cary represent that country house mode at its most developed. The Edinburgh Grand offers something structurally different: urban density, architectural heritage, and residential functionality in a single package. For guests whose trip is the city rather than a retreat from it, the trade-off reads clearly in the property's favour.

Other Edinburgh properties worth contextualising against the Grand include the Gleneagles Townhouse, which brings the country house brand into the New Town with a full F&B operation, and Black Ivy and 24 Royal Terrace Hotel for smaller-scale alternatives with distinct personalities. Each occupies a different position in the city's accommodation range, and the right choice depends on whether the priority is hotel amenities, residential flexibility, or neighbourhood feel.

Planning a Stay

Booking is handled through the Luxury Collection's standard Marriott channels, which gives Bonvoy members direct access to points accumulation and elite benefits. The property accommodates between one and six guests per apartment, making it one of the few premium Edinburgh addresses that works for small groups or families without requiring multiple rooms. August festival bookings fill months in advance across the city; at St Andrew Square, the combination of residential space and central access makes availability during that period particularly competitive. For stays outside the festival season, Edinburgh's shoulder months of April, May, October, and early November offer the city at a more considered pace, with the autumn light giving the New Town's Georgian geometry its leading photographic conditions.

Guests arriving by rail from London will find Waverley the natural terminus, while those driving can use the city's park-and-ride infrastructure before making the short walk to St Andrew Square. The address itself, 42 St Andrew Square, places the property on the square's southern side, within direct reach of the tram line that connects the city centre to Edinburgh Airport.