NEWS that an “iconic” department store in Edinburgh could be turned into – all together now – a hotel has brought groans from a citizenry that has begun to see itself as an unwanted encumbrance in the tourist era.

But the possible transformation of House of Fraser at the west end of Princes Street would herald something worse in the sense of an actual department store going down the Swanee.

Department stores are the apex of Western civilisation. They speak to us of Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn and of the glamorous 1950s, when everybody in the world was happy.

When the last department store closes, you will know that we have entered a new age of barbarism in which small shops with irritating owners (“characters”) are the norm.

Edinburgh’s House of Fraser appears to have two main problems. It is cramped and warren-like so it cannot expand.

Retail analysts say stores don’t want to be warrens any more, which is absurd of them. We, the people, love warrens.

But everywhere, including even banks, the fashion is for Apple-type stores where everything is bright, open and in your face.

In banks where this has happened, the staff have to stand up all the time, which is supposed to be good for you but gives you varicose veins and Schwarzenegger calves.

The other reason for House of Fraser selling up is that it sees the posh pound is now firmly at the east end of Princes Street.

It already owns Jenners, which is over in that direction, and attracts a clientele with more money than sense.

Jenners, the grand old dame of Princes Street, is the sort of place where you look at the price tag on a pair of troosers and find yourself several minutes later being revived with smelling salts.

Just round the corner from Jenners is the similarly upmarket (in an Absolutely Fabulous sort of way) Harvey Nichols, a place I have visited once but can never return as we were in the restaurant and my pal said the wine was corked and the haughty waiter said: “It’s a screwtop bottle, sir.”

Though I understand now that the content of screwtop bottles can also be off, we still shouldn’t have poured our soup over the waiter’s head and covered our subsequent retreat from the joint with volleys of bread rolls.

Then you’ve got John Lewis, which used to be of the people – down to a point – but is now frequented by the sort of galoots who wear Barbour cloaks.

Right beside John Lewis, the old St James Centre has been knocked down and is being replaced by a “visionary” (you could see it far enough) retail area complete with – yawn – a “luxury hotel”.

Interestingly (readers’ chorus: “We’ll be the judge of that”), just a few seconds away from all of this bustle is curiously quiet Regent Road where sits the old Royal High School building.

You’ll have followed in your Herald the outcry over plans (since vetoed) to turn that into a hotel tae.

It’s the place that normal people expected the new Scottish Parliament to be, but this was pooh-poohed by the Unionist establishment who feared it would become a “Nationalist shibboleth”.

So, instead, they poured some concrete into a tiny wee site in the dead half of the Royal Mile.

Which doesn’t bring us back nicely to the west end of Princes Street, which is far from dead, at least to the naked eye.

Retail footfall may well be another matter, though it’s only five minutes along the road from the east end.

In September, the House of Fraser business as a whole recorded widening losses and declining sales, which was attributed partly – as you might imagine – to a womenswear stock clearance.

The company was still upbeat, though there were grumblings about a lack of investment in its Edinburgh store as it focused instead on Jenners (another warren, oddly enough).

As a major chain, House of Fraser has its humble origins in 1849 and a small drapery shop on the corner of Glasgow’s Argyll Street and Buchanan Street.

The west end site in Edinburgh started retail life as drapers Robert Maule & Son in 1894, before Binns opened the current building in 1931.

It was still known as Maule’s for many years, and “Meet me at Maule’s” was a common saying in the city.

The pavement beneath the bagpiper-festooned clock, which dates back to 1960, remains a popular spot to meet and is known traditionally as a place where prospective partners have been stood up (oddly enough, it was the east end that did it for me).

Time marches on, and nothing remains the same. We all know that.

But it would be a shame to see House of Fraser go, and for Edinburgh’s department store lovers to be stood up for a hotel.