Description

Earlier - mid 19th century. Single storey symmetrical rectangular-plan classical villa with basement and recessed wings. Polished sandstone ashlar; basement droved; rubble to sides and rear. Base course; eaves course; deeply overhanging eaves.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: steps up to pedimented doorcase supported by Doric columns; pilasters behind; 4-panel timber door with 3-pane fanlight; architraved and aproned single windows to flanking bays. Single windows to 1-bay wings. Central timber door to basement with single windows to flanking bays, single window to N wing (continuous with wing of No 15), and a 2-leaf wooden garage door to S wing.

Grey slate piended roof with deep eaves; coped wallhead stacks with corniced cans. 12-pane lying-pane sash and case windows to ground; 12- and 9-pane sash and case windows to basement.

INTERIOR: not seen 1996.

BOUNDARY WALLS: Low coped boundary wall to street with gatepiers to either end; coped mutual rubble boundary walls.

Statement of Interest

From the evidence of Post Office Directory Maps, No 17 appears to have been built some years later than its similar neighbour at No 15.

Dr Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, an eminent Edinburgh surgeon and farmer, speculated on the potential for development in the lands of Newington. In 1806, aware of the demand for countrified dwellings near the city, he advertised his intention to sell 58 plots of land within his 8.5 acres. On his death in the same year his son George Bell, also a surgeon, inherited the land and, in 1825, commissioned James Gillespie Graham to design a plan for new streets within the grounds of Newington House, bounded by the back garden walls of Minto Street, Salisbury Road, East Mayfield and Dalkeith Road. Feus were offered for sale and Blacket Place began to take shape, the houses possibly being built speculatively by one builder or building company. Security was an important feature of the development, with Gothic gates, the octagonal piers of which survive, locked at night and single storey lodges at the entrances from Minto Street and Dalkeith Road.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17793117

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.

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