, sketching the Old Town skyline, including his future haunt. His fixation with history, art and theatre came together in this passion project: a fabulous, maximalist extravaganza never knowingly under-ornamented, testament to the philosophy that more is more. In an age when many luxury hotels have become synonymous with chilly minimalism – bleak, oligarchal white and greige boxes – his vision has been more than vindicated. Originally established as a restaurant, 43 years on, the Witchery has expanded into two restaurants and nine suites (a tenth on the way), on both sides of the Royal Mile. It employs about 100 people, and makes more daily than it did in the entirety of its opening year. Thomson also owns nearby 23-bedroom hotel Prestonfield House, built for Edinburgh's Lord Provost by Sir William Bruce on completion of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in 1689. Cool kids have always loved a spot of mock-baroque, Vivienne Westwood and Kate Moss being fans. Moreover, post-lockdown, those aforementioned five-star white boxes feel quite clinical, smacking of the hospital ward. Interior trends have gone distinctly OTT, with heavy brown furniture regaining popularity, paint colours ever darker and more extravagant, and even minimalist paradise Ikea selling chintz, despite having urged us to chuck it out back in 1996. However, some of us have always been Hallowe'en harpies. At school, boys would follow me about clicking The Addams Family theme. At Oxford, I was assumed to be a galloping consumptive. I even boast a Wednesday to my Morticia in the form of my niece, Ada, aged four, who is obsessed with dead ancestors and Addams lore. We goth girls are 'having a moment'. Munster chic has been all over the catwalks, with witchy women walking for Balenciaga, Givenchy, Dolce & Gabbana, Marni, Ar){kind=link}
The enduring appeal of a dark and brooding bolthole like this beats chilly minimalism any day for goths at heart
“And this is where witches were tortured, then burned alive for being in league with the Devil,” notes an English father, in half-term horror mode, gesturing towards my hotel suite. “Imagine the screams as their skin crisps and their hair spits.”
“Scotland,” intones his saucer-eyed daughter, eying my pale face and dark hair. All I lack is a cat and broomstick. For I have set up camp as goth-in-residence at the Witchery by the Castle, on Edinburgh’s Castlehill, established at Hallowe’en 1979 by then 20-year-old James Thomson OBE – the man behind the area’s regeneration. And this place did indeed mark the end for hundreds of witches – or, as we now refer to them, “feminists” – who were burned at the stake on Castlehill during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Built at the gates of Edinburgh Castle in 1595 for the merchant Thomas Lowthian, Thomson’s candlelit eerie is entered via a shadowy passageway – the inscription above the doorway still bearing the initials TL and his not at all ominous motto: “O Lord, in thee is all my traist.” Among its later uses were committee rooms for the Church of Scotland, the rectory of a nearby church, and a meeting place for a local Hellfire Club.
Thomson attended the neighbouring George Heriot’s School, inspiration for JK Rowling’s Hogwarts. Clearly a fellow goth, he spent his time in Greyfriars Graveyard (home of the devoted Bobby), sketching the Old Town skyline, including his future haunt. His fixation with history, art and theatre came together in this passion project: a fabulous, maximalist extravaganza never knowingly under-ornamented, testament to the philosophy that more is more.