Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel has reopened after the completion of a £450,000 renovation project.
Hostelling Scotland appointed Glasgow design team Graven to transform their reception, lounge, café bar and restaurant into spaces for eating, drinking, relaxing and socialising. It is hoped the investment in the Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel at 9 Haddington Place will make the youth hostel more appealing in the city’s competitive budget accommodation market.
The Hostelling Scotland charity is using quality food suppliers and authentic Scottish brewing with Edinburgh Central offering guests Innes and Gunn beer on tap. The restaurant and café bar, licensed from 11:00 to 01:00 every day, will serve a range of food and drink including fresh and seasonal produce.
Margo Paterson, Hostelling Scotland Chief Executive, said: “This supports our mission to make Scotland more accessible to more people than, especially the young. Our aim is to provide great value, affordable, flexible and welcoming accommodation in the best locations across this beautiful country of ours.”
“You don’t have to be an overnight guest to enjoy our warm and welcoming hospitality. With Edinburgh Central, we are open to all and have created a vibrant city centre venue for everyone to enjoy great food and drink in a comfy and relaxed environment.”
Margo Paterson, Hostelling Scotland Chief Executive
The renovation of Edinburgh Central follows work at other hostels including Glen Nevis at Fort William, Inverness and Aberdeen. The charity is currently carrying out renovation work at Cairngorm Lodge Youth Hostel with several other projects in the pipeline.
Hostelling Scotland is a self-funding charitable organisation with 33 hostels located across the nation which accommodate more than 340,000 guests annually and contribute an estimated £25million to the Scottish visitor economy.
In Scotland I attended Dunfermline High School from 2010 to 2016 and Edinburgh Napier University from 2016 to 2020, emerging with two Advanced Higher and five Higher qualifications from the former and graduating with an undergraduate bachelor of arts honours degree in journalism from the latter. After two years away from further education due to the coronavirus pandemic, I'm going to be studying the MFA Photography course at York St John University in England from 2022 to 2024. I've achieved The Duke of Edinburgh’s (Bronze) Award and received grade five level certification for electronic keyboard from Trinity College London. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, writing, watching television series, listening to music and going to the cinema as well as catching up with friends, travelling by railway and hostelling overnight and overindulging in food and drinks in a pub or restaurant then having to go to the gym to burn it all off again.
By studying journalism and photography, my aim of practicing photojournalism professionally will hopefully be once step closer. Both are partial artforms requiring the rest of the work to be undertaken by the audience, the specialism of photojournalism, however, providing each of its two parts with greater context. Exploring photographic techniques (aerial, timelapse, editing) through a variety of journalistic styles (features, poetry, songwriting) will allow me to develop my portfolio, hone my camera skillset and narrow my focus further in anticipation of working life. Without a global pandemic to deal with this time. Fingers crossed.
