'Significant' rise expected in cost of musical vision for Edinburgh's Royal High School landmark as work begins at last

The transformation of one of Edinburgh’s most promiment landmarks into a national music centre, education hub and concert venue is expected to cost “significantly” more than envisaged and take up to four years to complete.

The former Royal High School building on Edinburgh's Calton Hill is earmarked for a new Scottish National Centre for Music.

Fundraising campaigns will be launched to help realise the full vision for the former Royal High School on Calton Hill to reality by 2027 as work finally got underway at the site, which overlooks the city’s Old Town.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is expected to be asked to help pay for the project.

An executive director and artistic director will become crucial figureheads of the proposed new National Centre for Music in the A-listed building, has been lying largely empty since 1968.

The former Royal High School building on Edinburgh's Calton Hill is earmarked for a new Scottish National Centre for Music.

It will host classical, choral, traditional and jazz concerts at least once a week in a 300-capacity main auditorium, which will be created in the former school hall which was converted in a planned debating chamber when the site was proposed for the home for a Scottish Assembly in the 1970s.

Plans to turn the building into a new home for the independent St Mary’s Music School, which is currently based in Edinburgh’s west end, were first announced eight years ago, while plans for a luxury hotel were being pursued.

The Dunard Fund, which was created by arts philanthropist Carol Colburn Grigor, pledged to bankroll the project, which initially had a £35m price tag when it was unveiled by a new charity, the Royal High School Preservation Trust.

The scheme had expanded to become a National Centre for Music by the time the trust put in a formal £1.5 million to take over the running of the building in 2021, after the Scottish Government rejected the proposed hotel development.By then the Dunard Fund had upped its planned contribution to £55 million, including £45 million for the planned redevelopment of existing buildings, as well as the demolition and replacement of others at the site, while a further £10 million was pledged for maintenance and running costs of the complex.

A new landscaped garden is to be created under plans to turn the former Royal High School on Edinburgh's Calton Hill into a new Scottish National Centre for Music.

A new pavilion will be created in the grounds to ensure there is a separate entrance to the site for staff and pupils, while the public will have daily access to a new landscaped garden and cafe-gallery to the west of the main building, as well as terraces overlooking the city.

However ticket-holders for concerts and other public events are expected to enter the building from Regent Road, which could be partly pedestrianised to accommodate both indoor and outdoor events. A new foyer and staircases for the venue are planned to be created under the existing spaces in the building.

However an updated estimate for how much the full project will cost to deliver is not expected to be known until detailed exploratory work is carried out at the site over the next few months to determine how much rock has to be excavated for the new facilities.

A long-awaited refurbishment of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh was plunged into crisis earlier this year when it emerged that the project had an £8.9m funding shortfall due to inflation in the construction industry and other cost increases.

St Mary's Music School pupils Paul Oggier, India Reilly, John Hall and Michelle Huang with former Royal High School pupil Richard Austin. Picture: Malcolm Cochrane

William Gray Muir, chairman of the Royal High School Preservation Trust, said: "The cost of the project has gone up significantly.

"We will only know the final costs once we understand what is underneath the existing buildings, but we are putting in place procedures to ensure that the money is there when it is required.

“There is a lot of enthusiasm from people to contribute. We have a very robust plan for providing the funding for the capital project.

"Of course we will want as many people as possible to contribute to it.

William Gray Muir is chairman of the Royal High School Preservation Trust. Picture: Malcolm Cochrane

"But our board would not be pushing on if it didn’t have confidence that the project was going to be delivered despite the significant cost increases.

“If there is a shortage of money you merely have to reduce the ambitions of the project, but we are committed to the capital project as it stands just now.

"We’ve got to see this as a 200-year opportunity. If we can’t raise money for this who can raise money for anything? We’ve got to fundraise to make the best use of the building.

“The better funded the project is the more it will deliver. With a project like this, you can never raise enough money for it.

"There will be so many different streams to it, including the different programmes, the garden will be a separate thing and it is unlikely that council will pay for public realm improvements outside.

“Our aspiration is to really rethink how that part of Regent Road works by making it significantly more pedestrian friendly and reduce the traffic flows. It is an obvious spot to do public events in the summer."

The former Royal High School building on Edinburgh's Calton Hill is earmarked for a new National Centre for Music.

It is hoped that the National Centre for Music will be worth an additional £100 million for Edinburgh’s economy in its first 30 years.

Mr Gray Muir added: “It’s literally being set up at the moment. We’re recruiting an executive director who will start the process of turning it into a professional institution with its own full-time staff.

"We’re very much moving on from being an organisation which has been campaigning for an idea. It will become an organisation which effectively lobbies for all aspects of music performance and education in Scotland.”

Several St Mary’s pupils were given a “hard hat tour” of the building earlier this month as the first work began.

Headteacher Dr Kenneth Taylor said: “The former Royal High School will create a glorious and very fitting setting to nurture and inspire young musicians from Scotland and further afield.

“As a school, to be able to bring education to the heart of the new National Centre for Music, which the site on Carlton Hill will become, opens up huge opportunities for the development of skills and talent for everyone passionate about music and the arts.”