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A new Edinburgh hotel has period features and a great location, but is let down by minor details and its contemporary refit
Opening in time for last summer's festival, the B+B has plenty going for it. Book via a discount site and, for the price of a B&B, you can stay in this 22-room hotel with its willing staff, whisky-stocked bar and views of Edinburgh Castle and Dean Village. It's the one Victorian showgirl of a building on a sedate Georgian terrace – arrive here in the dark and you can't miss its intricately paned windows, shimmering between the neighbours like a flaming sambuca at a vicar's tea party.
The building was remodelled in 1883 for the owner of the Scotsman newspaper, John Ritchie Findlay. Its architect, Sydney Mitchell, also oversaw the apprenticeship of Findlay's son, James Leslie, who went on to design the Scotsman's former headquarters, which is also now a hotel. Unsurprisingly, the interiors bear more than a passing resemblance to each other, and both boast showy staircases liberal in their use of green marble.
Downstairs at 3 Rothesay Terrace are period features such as wooden panelling in the breakfast room, where you eat below a giant, carved fireplace and stained glass windows. And the balconied first-floor library is a lovely space to relax, with a view on to Drumsheugh Gardens. Don't expect the bedrooms to follow suit though. Period details had long been stripped out of the upper floors when B+B took over the building. Hence the contemporary styling. Even that wood-panelled breakfast room has moulded plastic tables and chairs and a plywood stag's head.
Given so many positives, it was frustrating to find a raft of minor niggles. My room came with a huge bed and a faultless bathroom, but was let down by a huge, dark, grey-green "unit" across almost the width of the room. The front worked as a headboard for the bed that faced three big windows, but the back, which housed shelving, wardrobe space and a TV (no watching TV in bed then) left the rest of the room in a gloom as dark as one of Edinburgh's haars. No bathrobes or slippers were provided, and only instant coffee and UHT milk.
Elsewhere, the harsh lighting, plastic flowers, tiny, dated lift, library stocked with what appeared to be the dregs of a house clearance (how about up-to-date local guides?) and an underwhelming breakfast that veered more towards international catering brands than local producers left the impression that this is a hotel that's not up to speed yet.
Close to Haymarket station and the bars, restaurants and boutiques of William Street, this is prime West End accommodation territory. It is very handy for a martini at The West Room, an order of pork and coriander dumplings at Chop Chop or a roast venison blowout at new opening The Mulroy (11a-13a William Street; 0131-225 6061, no web). Price-wise, B+B Edinburgh more than holds its own against heavyweight local competition. But to beat it, it needs to smooth those rough edges.
• Transport was provided by East Coast trains (0845 722 5111, eastcoast.co.uk), which has singles from London to Edinburgh from £12.90
Rhiannon Batten (follow Rhiannon on Twitter @rhiannonbatten)
