Green light for Calton Hill hotel plan would be an act of barbarism

IN the late 18th century John Neale created, at a suitable site on Princes Street in Edinburgh, the first hostelry in Scotland to be called a “hotel”. As one of his descendants I strongly object, in the name of my ancestors and of my own generation, to the folly of plans for an obtrusive Mayan-style hotel next to Thomas Hamilton’s Royal High School on Calton Hill. John Neale would turn in his grave at such a desecration of Edinburgh’s acropolis, the crowning icon of the Athens of the North. The city planners must reject the vandalising of this neo-classical temple to the Scottish Enlightenment, so admired by international visitors to Edinburgh, from Count Camillo Bensour di Cavour of Piedmont onwards.

In the delicate balance of its topography, vegetation and Greek Revival architecture, Calton Hill is an outstanding feature of what has rightly been designated by Unesco as a World Heritage Site. The proposals would overwhelm the Royal High School complex by juxtaposing incongruous commercial buildings, defying Unesco’s ideals of conservationism both in letter and in spirit. They would destroy the aesthetic and spiritual quality of a numinous skyline – its prospect still draws the breath away when first seen by many a visitor and gives lasting pleasure to the eye as the light and seasons change. Its disfigurement under the planned application would be more than an affront to ordinary tourists and residents powerless to intercede. It would be an act of barbarism against an historic monument—akin on a minor scale to the destruction of Palmyra by Islamists, but on the altar of Mammon rather than that of Mohammed.