The Buchanan Hotel is Glasgow’s oldest surviving hotel.

First opened in 1840 as the Waverley Temperance Hotel, this denoted its importance to the Waverley Railway line running between Glasgow and Edinburgh from what is now Queen St Station.

The hotel was a “dry” hotel in those days and remained so for over 40 years, where alcohol was neither sold nor permitted on the premises.

Around 1890 the hotel became the Ivanhoe and was THE place to be in Glasgow – the wealthy and famous would not stay anywhere else. Several of our older clientele still refer to the hotel as the Ivanhoe.

In the mid 1970s the hotel name was changed to Buchanan, not simply for the street but also for the tobacco baron Earl of Buchanan who had brought a great deal of wealth and many jobs to the city.

The hotel was in private hands up until 1997 when Strathmore Hotels Limited took on a lease over the property.

The hotel forms part of Glasgow City Council’s master regeneration plan, commenced after the massively successful Garden Festival in the 1980s. The plan includes designated zoning of types of businesses – Buchanan Street clearly being part of the retail sector of the city.