{{short description| Historical building in Scotland}} {{Use British English|date=January 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2014}} {{Infobox historic site |image=RBSG HQ, St Andrews Square, Edinburgh.jpg |caption = Dundas House, Edinburgh |location = St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, Scotland |locmapin = Scotland Edinburgh Central |coordinates = {{coord|55.954623|-3.190952|display=inline,title}} |map_caption = Location within Edinburgh |designation1 = Category A listed building |designation1_offname = 36 St Andrew Square, Dundas House, Royal Bank of Scotland Head Office |designation1_date = 13 April 1965 |designation1_number = 29705 |architect = Sir William Chambers |built = 1771–4 |built_for = Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet }}
'''Dundas House''' is a Neoclassical building in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at 36 St Andrew Square, in the city's first New Town. The building was completed in 1774 as a private town house for Sir Lawrence Dundas by the architect Sir William Chambers. Much altered internally and extended over the years, today it is the registered office of the Royal Bank of Scotland and its parent, NatWest Group and is protected as a category A listed building.<ref name="hes">{{HEScotland |num=LB29705 |desc=36 St Andrew Square, Dundas House, Royal Bank of Scotland Head Office, With Associated Additions, Walls, Gatepiers, Gates, Railings And Lamp Standards}}</ref>
==Background== The site was previously occupied by a rural refreshment house known as "Peace and Plenty" where visitors could enjoy strawberries and cream.<ref name="oldedinburghclub.org.uk">{{Cite web |date=1938 |title=The Book of Old Edinburgh Club |url=https://www.oldedinburghclub.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BOEC-OS/Volume-22.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221113233839/https://www.oldedinburghclub.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/BOEC-OS/Volume-22.pdf |archive-date=13 November 2022 |access-date=22 February 2023 |website=Old Edinburgh Club |edition=22nd}}</ref> This stood on the road from Edinburgh to Stockbridge, called Gabriels Road, of which remnants are still extant at its extremities.
When the town council made plans for a New Town drawn up by James Craig in 1767, the site of the courtyard in front of Dundas House was shown as a proposed church, St. Andrew's, acting as a counterpart to St. George's Church on what became Charlotte Square (originally to be called St. George's Square but an earlier development to the south of the Old Town had been named George Square}. The two were separated by the New Town itself laid out on a formal grid centred on George Street along which the two churches were to face each other.<ref name="model city">{{cite book |last1=Carley |first1=Michael |last2=Dalziel |first2=Robert |last3=Dargan |first3=Pat |last4=Laird |first4=Simon |title=Edinburgh New Town: A Model City |date=2015 |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |isbn=9781445639598 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-JiCgAAQBAJ&q=edinburgh%20new%20town%20james%20craig%20st%20andrew's%20church%20st%20george&pg=PT39 |access-date=6 September 2018 |language=en}}</ref>
The site of Dundas House is indicated on Craig's plan as being owned by Sir Lawrence Dundas who decided to develop the land by erecting a prestigious townhouse. Initially, he invited designs from the architects John Carr and James Byres, but their proposals were not adopted. Dundas then turned to Sir William Chambers who drew up plans for the mansion in early 1771. The designs were agreed, and soon afterwards construction began on the house. The building was completed by January 1774.<ref name="courtauld">{{cite book |editor1-last=Harris |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Snodin |editor2-first=Michael |title=Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III |date=1996 |publisher=Courtauld Institute of Art/Yale University Press |isbn=0300069405 |pages=102–04 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y3fzWeaOPI0C&q=%22dundas%20house%22%20edinburgh%20%221774%22&pg=PA102 |access-date=6 September 2018 |language=en}}</ref>
In 1780 Hugo Arnot described the building as "incomparably the handsomest townhouse we ever saw".<ref name="courtauld" />
The proposed St Andrew's Church was subsequently built at a less prominent site at 13 George Street.
==Commercial use== Lord Dundas died in 1781 and his son Sir Thomas Dundas, 2nd Baronet inherited the house. He sold the house to the government in 1794 who converted it to the Excise House, which opened in 1795. At this stage it gained the royal coat of arms of the British Customs and Excise in its pediment.<ref name="oldedinburghclub.org.uk"/> thumb|Dundas House, drawn by William Elliott, in 1818 Dundas House was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1825 for £35,300.<ref name="oldedinburghclub.org.uk"/> The interior was altered in 1825 and 1828 by Archibald Elliot the Younger, and in 1836 by William Burn. Much of these alterations were removed by John Dick Peddie in 1857 when a banking hall with a distinctive pierced dome was added to the rear of the existing house.<ref name="pevsner" />
In 1834, a statue of John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun, who had served as Governor of the Bank 1820–23, was placed in the garden in front of Dundas House. The statue was originally commissioned in 1824 by a group of high ranking persons in Edinburgh, led by James Gibson-Craig, from the sculptor Thomas Campbell. Campbell created it in Rome and it was shipped to Britain in 1828. The statue was originally commissioned for Charlotte Square.<ref name="oldedinburghclub.org.uk"/> but its location on the courtyard of Dundas House was agreed by the architect in January 1830, and an appropriate plinth was designed to respect the frontage of Dundas House.
In 1972 the 19th-century banking screens and counters were removed and replaced by white marble counters.<ref name="hes">{{HEScotland |num=LB29705 |desc=36 St Andrew Square, Dundas House, Royal Bank of Scotland Head Office, With Associated Additions, Walls, Gatepiers, Gates, Railings And Lamp Standards}}</ref>
==Architecture== thumb|Boardroom ceiling, Dundas House thumb|The ornate entrance hall thumb|The starry domed ceiling over the banking hall in Dundas House Dundas House is a free-standing house designed in the Palladian style. It was modelled on Roger Morris's 1729 Palladian villa Marble Hill House in Twickenham, London but is much grander.
The house is built of cream sandstone ashlar, weathered to light grey, from Ravelston Quarry some three miles to the west.<ref name="ravelston">{{cite web |last1=Vaughan |first1=Andrew |last2=Vaughan |first2=Langton |title=Ravelston Woodland WIAT Management Plan |url=http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/27684/ravelston_woods_management_plan |publisher=City of Edinburgh Council |access-date=20 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180820101450/http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/27684/ravelston_woods_management_plan |archive-date=20 August 2018 |page=1 |date=July 2005|url-status=live}}</ref> It is fronted with a set of Corinthian pilasters supporting a large central pediment. The house is faced with ashlar with a rusticated ground floor.<ref name="courtauld" /><ref name="pevsner">{{cite book |last1=Gifford |first1=John |last2=McWilliam |first2=Colin |last3=Walker |first3=David |last4=Wilson |first4=Christopher |title=The buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh|date=1991 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0300096720 |page=325 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mvmDV3oeRU0C&q=royal%20bank%20of%20scotland%20headquarters%20dundas%20house&pg=PA325 |access-date=15 March 2018|language=en}}</ref>
The large, opulent banking hall, added by Peddie in 1857, is covered by a large circular blue dome which is pierced by 5 tiers of star-shaped gold-rimmed coffered skylights radiating out from the central oculus which diminish in size towards the centre, representing the firmament.<ref name="pevsner" /> An illustration of this star pattern featured on Royal Bank of Scotland's "Islay" series of banknotes which were in circulation 1987–2016.<ref>{{cite web|title=Edinburgh Photo Library - Royal Bank of Scotland HQ|url=http://www.rampantscotland.com/edinburgh/bledin_rbos.htm|website=www.rampantscotland.com|access-date=15 March 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=RBS plan to share historic Edinburgh HQ|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/rbs-plan-to-share-historic-edinburgh-hq-1-2277922|website=The Scotsman|access-date=15 March 2018|language=en}}</ref><ref name="ilaynotes">{{cite web|url=http://www.rbs.com/about/our-banknotes/current-issue-notes.html |title=Our Banknotes – The Ilay Series |year=2008 |publisher=The Royal Bank of Scotland Group |access-date=27 April 2013 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130126133012/http://www.rbs.com/about/our-banknotes/current-issue-notes.html |archive-date=26 January 2013 }}</ref>
==The Dunard Centre== {{Main|The Dunard Centre}} In 2017, the International Music and Performing Arts Charitable Trust Scotland (IMPACT Scotland) announced plans to develop a 1,000-seat concert venue, to be known as The Dunard Centre, behind Dundas House, replacing a block of banking offices that was built in the 1960s. Dundas House would be retained as a bank and would continue to be accessible to the public.<ref name="impact">{{cite web|author1=David Chipperfield Architects|title=The IMPACT Centre|url=http://impactscotland.org.uk/sites/default/files/PC2%20Display%20Final.pdf|website=Impact Scotland|access-date=15 March 2018|date=15 March 2018}}</ref> Revised planning permission for the development was granted in 2021 following a legal challenge by the developers of a neighbouring site.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Thomas-Alexander |first1=Tiya |title=Fresh plans submitted for £75m Edinburgh concert hall |url=https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/contractors/sir-robert-mcalpine/fresh-plans-submitted-for-75m-edinburgh-concert-hall-13-08-2021/ |website=Construction News |access-date=23 April 2024 |language=en |date=13 August 2021}}</ref> Work on clearing the site got under way in February 2023.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Stephen |first1=Phyllis |title=Work begins on Dunard Centre – a new concert hall for Edinburgh |url=https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2023/02/work-begins-on-dunard-centre-a-new-concert-hall-for-edinburgh/ |access-date=23 April 2024 |work=The Edinburgh Reporter |date=6 February 2023}}</ref> In June 2024, it was announced that the construction of the building would start early in 2025, with a target completion date in 2029.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ferguson |first1=Brian |title=When Edinburgh's new concert hall will open and why the £114m New Town venue will be 'transformational' |url=https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/when-edinburghs-new-concert-hall-will-open-and-why-the-ps114m-new-town-venue-will-be-transformational-4672600 |website=The Scotsman |access-date=15 July 2024 |location=Edinburgh |date=20 June 2024}}</ref>
==See also== * Banknotes of Scotland (featured on design)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/552959575077077/ Edinburgh Bank] — BBC ''Nationwide'' (BBC Archive, 1974) {{commons category|RBS Headquarters, Edinburgh}}
{{Residential buildings in Edinburgh}} {{Commercial buildings in Edinburgh}}
Category:Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Category:Royal Bank of Scotland Category:Listed houses in Scotland Category:New Town, Edinburgh Category:William Chambers buildings Category:Houses completed in 1774 Category:1774 establishments in Scotland Category:Palladian Revival architecture in Scotland Category:Domes in the United Kingdom Category:Bank buildings in the United Kingdom + Category:Townhouses in the United Kingdom