Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey and attic Scots Baronial tenement block with machicolated oriel corbelled out to centre at 2nd and attic floors; public house to ground floor. Squared and snecked lightly stugged sandstone with polished dressings (painted to ground). Moulded corbel over shop, stepped over square rosette panels. Moulded eaves course with date panel (1860). Roll-moulded openings to ground floor; stop-chamfered above. Small window to attic of oriel with segmental pediment containing carved initals (PK) in finialled, kneelered gable. 2 flanking dormers with decorative pediments.

2-pane upper, 4-pane lower glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. Built as the Orderly Rooms of the City of Edinburgh Rifle Brigade; later became an annexe to the Cockburn Hotel (Nos 1-3 Cockburn Street). Known briefly as Lord Cockburn Street, Cockburn Street was named after the doyen of conservationists, Lord Cockburn, who died in 1854. Cockburn Street was built by the High Street and Railway Station Access Company, under the Railway Station Acts of 1853 and 1860, to provide access to Waverley Station from the High Street. The serpentine curve of the street (anticipated in Thomas Hamilton's Victoria Street) gives a gradient of not more than 1:14; James Peddie and Henry J Wylie were the engineers. One of the aims of the design was to conceal the diagonal line of the street from Princes Street. A watercolour perspective drawing of the street by John Laing, published in THE BUILDER of 1860, shows how this was to be achieved. Stylistically, the intention was 'to preserve as far as possible the architectural style and antique character of the locality.' Peddie and Kinnear's Cockburn Street designs are an innovative application (much imitated later) of the Scots Baronial style, previously used by Burn and Bryce in country houses, to the urban situation, with shops and tenements enlivened by crowstepped gables, corbelling and turrets, linked by moulded string courses.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17801726

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

• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
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  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
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  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
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  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
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  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)