The Royal Scots Club: Where the old guard meets the new

A LARGE tin of Brasso parked on the step inside the members' entrance is a sure sign something's afoot at the Royal Scots Club. For whatever reason, it seems the already gleaming doorknobs, plaques and light switches will get an extra buffing this morning. Throughout the ground floor of this Edinburgh institution, front-of-house staff flit across marbled and carpeted floors as nimbly as mice, a hint of tension in their smiles. Seemingly oblivious, four of the club's blue-rinsed lady members, wearing tweeds as impenetrable as armour, chat over coffee and shortbread on the couches nearest the hearth, while around them final preparations are made for an official visit from their prestigious and revered Patron – the Princess Royal.

Today sees the completion of one of the final and most significant stages in an ambitious 1.5 million project to develop and refurbish the club, which was founded directly after (and because of) the First World War. For the first time in the club's 90-year history here, all six floors of the magnificent premises – three interlinked Georgian townhouses at 29-31 Abercromby Place – are now in use for its 2,000 members and other guests.

Adrian Hayes is the club's affable and energetic general manager, who previously ran hotels – "I came to help out for six months in 1987 and I've been here ever since" – and he's offered The Scotsman an exclusive preview of the upgraded premises, on which work began back in April 2008 and whose new conference room, the Princess Royal Suite, will be formally opened by Princess Anne herself this afternoon. It's no understatement to say that the Royal Scots Club has come a long way from its origins.

The Royal Scots Regiment was the British Army's oldest infantry regiment, first raised in 1633 and existing until its amalgamation into the newly formed Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. Its contribution to the First World War was immense, with more than 100,000 officers and infantrymen ultimately called to arms, of whom around half were either killed or badly wounded. Few were the families in Scotland untouched by trauma or loss at the conflict's end. Seven Victoria Crosses were awarded.

It was Colonel Lord Henry Scott, a son of the sixth Duke of Buccleuch, a distinguished soldier and Honorary Colonel of the regiment's Third Battalion in 1919, who suggested a permanent organisation for all Royal Scots, in memory of the 11,000 fallen. What he envisaged was more than a static monument, something that would benefit and act as a focus for past, present and future members of the regiment, while also honouring the dead. And so it was that, in 1921, the Royal Scots Club's trustees found it a permanent home here in the capital's New Town.

"About 50 to 60 per cent of our 2,000 members are serving or formerly serving soldiers," Hayes says, estimating that around 35 per cent of those are female (though until the early 1970s, women were not allowed in the club after 6pm). Civilian and corporate members form the remainder. "We're unique, a functioning war memorial and the only military club in Scotland with such extensive facilities. Its trustees have a responsibility to look after it for ever." It's some task: these facilities include a lounge, library, bar and dining rooms for members, as well as 20 hotel rooms, business and event facilities that can be used by non-members. But because the majority of the ex-military subscription-payers are aged 70 and over, their numbers inevitably dwindling, new ways have had to be found not only to maintain the club but also to improve it. And the main challenge is that there are parts of it where change is the last thing anyone wants to see.

The members' lounge is one such place, a shrine to the dado rail and the picture light, the fringed pelmet and the pleated silk lampshade. Here, the passage of time is marked by the soporific tick of a grandmother clock. Next door in the library, two middle-aged men in corduroy trousers carry on a hushed conversation in wing-backed leather armchairs, while a businessman in a crisp pink shirt taps away quietly at his laptop. Walnut bookcases line the room, bearing regimental silver, dictionaries and leather-bound editions of Punch magazine that date back to 1911.

It's not a life preserved in aspic, however: Hayes says you're as likely to hear spirited debate about the current conflict in Afghanistan as you are reminiscences of the old days. Some members have served in Afghanistan themselves, or have sons serving there. "Fifteen years ago we regularly heard old soldiers swapping moving or funny stories from the Second World War, but members of that generation are falling hugely in number now. Though we do still have a 90-year-old man who once liberated a town in Holland."

How do you bring an exquisite and unique institution such as this into the 21st century, without alienating those for whom it is a vital link with their military past?

"Our members very much understand our need to evolve," says Hayes. "A building like this eats up money, so commercial reality is necessary – just as long as they still have their lounges."

How is the 1.5m redevelopment being paid for? "The funding came from previous years' profits," Hayes explains. "We'd saved up a bit of money, but also had to borrow some.'"

Do long-standing members ever bequeath money to the club in their will, I wonder? "We've had the odd small amount in the past,' he says, adding that a development fund has existed for some 50 years that enables members to contribute. "For this latest upgrade we invited members to pay for specific items, such as hanging baskets at 25 each." There were a lot of small donations, he adds jovially, "so we might end up with more hanging baskets than we hoped for".

Away from the wood-panelled lounges with their stained-glass windows, down the stairs, yet still above ground level at Dundas Street to the rear, the most radical changes have been made (with some still ongoing). The Institute of Directors enjoys corporate membership here, and its members had asked for more modern business facilities in a separate space, which is what they've now got. The Princess Royal Suite, with its inbuilt high-tech sound and visual equipment, will be accessed by a new lift that serves all six floors. Three interlinked kitchens with innovative mobile ovens (costing 18,000 each) can now easily cater events on two different floors simultaneously.

The back wall of the building has been extended, so that what was once the club's separate mews cottage is now part of the main building and has been converted into four chic, cosy and very quiet hotel bedrooms, with en suite bathrooms and kitchen facilities, tucked away remotely from the main areas. A former outdoor carriage store, with an original vaulted brick ceiling, is currently undergoing transformation into a stylish bar called The Cavern.

"We always knew we'd eventually develop all areas of the building," Hayes says of the spaces that were formerly rented out to a fitness club. "We had turned away business because of lacking space. And putting a lift in the building had become increasingly important: the average age of our members who lunch in the upstairs dining room is 70, after all. And the Americans who stay in our hotel rooms always tend to ask where the 'elevator' is."

Back upstairs again, I ask Hayes if I can see the bedroom where Princess Anne sleeps whenever she stays here. To be honest, it's a bit less grand than I'd expected, though Adrian insists it's "fit for a princess". There's a modest four-poster bed draped in regal crimson, a pretty cheval mirror, a white marble fireplace, some potpourri amusingly decanted into an antique chamber pot on the dresser – all very elegant, but not on a palatial scale. The bathroom is pristine, but because it's quite small the Princess has to suffer the indignity of clambering into the bath in order to have a shower.

And why does Princess Anne sleep in a hotel room, anyway, when there's a not-bad family residence just across town? "Holyroodhouse palace is a bloody big property to open up for just one night," says Hayes, with surprising bluntness.

We return to the ground floor, and Hayes whisks off to ensure all is going to plan behind the scenes. In the members' entrance hall the Brasso has vanished and the surfaces all look dazzling. But the feature that puts every bit of brass, marble and regimental silver in the shade is the memorial itself, the heart and soul of this building, a mounted stone plaque that pays eloquent tribute to the fallen and promises that no matter what changes may occur inside or outside the Royal Scots Club, "We will remember them".