Description

Pirie and Clyne, 1894; John Morgan, builder. 2-storey, basement and attic, 2-bay, rectangular-plan villa. Coursed, rough-faced grey granite, finely finished to margins of principal elevation; Aberdeen bond granite rubble to remainder. Dark grey granite base course; ground floor cill course; moulded 1st floor cill course; eaves course.

NW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: asymmetrical; doorway to left of ground floor with decoratively stop-chamfered jambs, pilastered panelled timber door, flanked to left and right by glazed panels and letterbox fanlight, decoratively leaded; single window to 1st floor above; 3-light canted window through ground and 1st floors of gabled bay to right, forming balcony at attic floor, round-arched window with deeply chamfered reveals set in gablehead of attic floor; tiny quatrefoil window to outer left at ground floor, angle turret swept up at 1st floor above, single window to centre, conical roof with scrolled lead finial.

SW ELEVATION: blank.

SE ELEVATION: near-symmetrical; basement floor not seen 2000; bipartite window to left of ground floor, flanked to right by 2 single windows; 3 regularly placed windows to 1st floor; canted dormer to left of attic floor, modern skylight to right.

NE ELEVATION: asymmetrical; panelled timber door off-centre to left of ground floor; pair of stair windows between ground and 1st floors and 1st and attic floors.

Predominantly 2-pane timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roof with terracotta ridge. Stone skews with blocked skewputts. Coped gablehead stacks with circular cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: much of original cornicing, skirting boards, dados and panelled timber doors survive; embossed wallpaper with sunflower paterae below dado; elongated colonnettes at angles of bay windows; distinctively turned balusters to sharply twisted staircase.

GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: low rough-faced pink Aberdeen bond granite walls to N and E with contrasting grey snecking and coping; piers to NW and NE, grey granite shaft swept up from plinth, rough-faced pink granite neck surmounted by scrolled cap; coped rubble walls to S, E and W, boarded timber gate to E and SE.

Statement of Interest

A-Group with 63, 62, 64-66, 68-70, 72, 74-76, 78-80, 82-84, 86-88, 90-92, 94-96 and 98 Hamilton Place Place, Whitehill Bowling Green Wall and 87 Fountainhall Road (see separate listings). 79 Hamilton Place forms part of J B Pirie (1851-1892) and Arthur Clyne's (1853-1924) finest terrace. 79 Hamilton Place is one of the simpler houses designed by Pirie and Clyne for the street. It flanks the Whitehill Bowling Green to the W, to the E of the green is the identical No 63 Hamilton Place (see separate listing). The interior of No 79 Hamilton Place is more simply detailed than that of No 63, although it does retain the distinctively turned balusters to the stair, which appear in all of their Hamilton Place interiors which survive. The exterior is elegant and well proportioned. Unusual details include the tiny quatrefoil window flanking the door to the left, the decoratively shouldered doorway and the round-arched window to the attic floor, a form also used for some of the doorways of the houses opposite. The plans for 79 Hamilton Place are dated 2 years after J B Pirie's death, suggesting that Morgan, for whom the majority of the street was designed, may have commissioned the design but not carried it out immediately, or may have adapted the existing design for No 63.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17576628

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)