Gleneagles Townhouse

Before it was a bank, No. 39 St Andrew Square was a house: a New Town mansion for the Earl of Dalhousie, whose son sold it to the British Linen Bank in 1807. In 1846 David Bryce rebuilt it as the bank's head office, and the front he gave it does not whisper. Six fluted Corinthian columns each carry a statue by Alexander Handyside Ritchie, for navigation, commerce and four more lines of the bank's lending book. Gleneagles opened it in 2022, its first venture out of Perthshire, under a name that goes back to the start: the Townhouse. The banking hall is now The Spence, serving from breakfast to the nightcap under the glass dome. Upstairs, the 33 bedrooms take the greens and golds of a Georgian house, olive velvet armchairs included. The one to ask for is a Master Bedroom, where a black roll-top bath stands on clawed feet on green marble.

Recommended for a couple on a city weekend who want Edinburgh on foot and some ceremony at either end of the day; no room sleeps more than two. The bank's vault is now the Strong Rooms, with a gym, more than 60 classes at no extra charge and a cryotherapy chamber, for anyone who finds an Edinburgh morning not cold enough. It is about ten minutes' walk across the valley to the Royal Mile, fifteen to the Castle. Then back up to Lamplighters, a terrace bar on the roof kept for members and hotel guests, which looks over the skyline to the Old Town. A bank keeps its valuables behind the vault door; this one has moved them to the roof.