Boswell's Court, 352 Castlehill. The way in, and a fair warning of the tone.Photograph Enchufla Con Clave / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
The Witchery by the Castle: nine suites, no lift, and the most theatrical rooms in Britain
Candlelight, oak panelling and roll-top baths in a building from 1595, ninety seconds from the castle gates. Not a hotel in any conventional sense, and all the better for refusing to be one.
The Witchery is at the top of the Royal Mile on Castlehill, in a merchant's house built in 1595, about ninety seconds downhill from the castle esplanade. The restaurant opened in 1979 and the suites followed, and in the decades since it has become the place Scotland sends people who want to be astonished rather than comfortable.
It is not a hotel in any conventional sense and it makes no attempt to be. There is no lobby, no reception desk in the usual sense, no gym, no spa, no lift and no breakfast room. There are nine suites above two restaurants, and there is a great deal of candlelight.
The suites
This is the whole proposition, and they are extraordinary. Antique oak panelling, tapestries, four-posters, roll-top baths standing in the room rather than hidden in a bathroom, and enough candles that arriving after dark feels staged. The names tell you the tone: the Inner Sanctum, the Old Rectory, the Guardroom, the Turret, the Vestry.
They are genuinely all different, which is why the verdict on this review is that the suite matters more than the hotel. A few things worth knowing before you choose:
- The Turret has the best bathroom in the building by some margin.
- The Guardroom is the quietest, which is not a small consideration on a street that does not go quiet until well after one.
- The Old Rectory and the Inner Sanctum are the two most photographed and the most theatrical.
Champagne and a hamper arrive with the room rather than as an extra, which is a small thing that sets the register for the whole stay.
The stairs, and who this does not suit
The suites are reached by narrow winding stone staircases and there is no lift anywhere in the building. That is inseparable from what the place is: you cannot put a lift into a 1595 merchant's house without destroying the thing you came for.
It does mean this is the wrong booking for anyone who struggles with stairs, and a real nuisance with a large suitcase. Pack light, ask the staff for help with bags, which they will give without being asked twice, and treat the climb as part of the arrival rather than an obstacle to it.
The restaurants
Two of them. The Witchery itself is the dark one, oak-panelled and candlelit, and the Secret Garden below is lighter, set in a former school playground with a stone terrace. Both do a Scottish menu with the game and the shellfish taken seriously and a wine list that is far longer than a restaurant of this size needs.
The theatre pre-show menu is one of the better deals in the city and is the reason a good number of Edinburgh residents come here without ever going upstairs. Breakfast is delivered to the suite, which is the correct arrangement given there is nowhere else to have it.
You are ninety seconds from the castle esplanade and four minutes from most of the big Fringe venues. During August that is worth more than a gym.
The position
Unbeatable for the festival and slightly absurd the rest of the year. Castlehill is the very top of the Royal Mile, which puts you above the Assembly and Gilded Balloon venues, next to the castle, and in the middle of the busiest four hundred metres in Scotland during August.
That is either exactly right or exactly wrong. If the point of the trip is being out in the festival until late, nothing else in the city touches it. If you want to be able to hear yourself think at eleven at night, book the Guardroom or book elsewhere.
What the rate buys
Around three hundred and ninety five pounds and up, rising steeply in August and around Hogmanay, and there are only nine suites so it books out further ahead than anywhere else on this list.
Judged as a hotel room that is expensive for no gym and no lift. Judged as a night in a candlelit sixteenth century building at the gates of Edinburgh Castle, with champagne waiting and a very good restaurant downstairs, it is fairly priced and there is nothing else quite like it in Britain. One night, done properly, is the right way to buy it.
The particulars
- Where: Castlehill, at the top of the Royal Mile.
- Ask for: the Turret for the bathroom, the Guardroom for quiet.
- Be aware: stone spiral stairs, no lift, pack light.
- Do not miss: dinner downstairs, and the walk up to the esplanade after dark.
- Best for: one night, an anniversary, or the festival if you intend to be out in it.
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