Panmure House

Panmure House sits between the Royal Mile and Calton Hill.

It is a pleasant , traditional eighteenth century domestic building . To one side are a row of Basil Spence designed flats and to the other, above Calton Road, sits the Burns memorial and the 19th century classical buildings of the hill along with the Art Deco St Andrews House. During the first parliament I lived for a while in a building on the other side of the little cul de sac sac where it is located.

Panmure House is also the only surviving Edinburgh residence of that great father of economics Adam Smith who has a global reputation.

The building was owned by Edinburgh Council but had been disused for the last few years. Heriot Watt University bought it some time ago and have spent a considerable sum of money restoring it and adding additional facilities.

I was there for the first time tonight in order to make pre dinner remarks about Brexit to a Macro Economist’s international conference presently being held in the city and I was bowled over by the fabulous conversion that has been done by Heriot Watt.

I hope that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament will take the opportunity to use the building as a venue for events in the coming years.