Description

John Lessels, 1874-82. Astylar renaissance terrace comprising 4-storey, 2-bay unified townhouse façade with main-door and common stair flats behind. Basement area to street including some vaulted cellars and retaining walls. Corner block to W with 5 bays to Walker Street return. Later single storey addition at rear of Nos. 6-9. Sandstone ashlar, channelled at ground floor. Entrance platts oversailing basement. Banded base course. Moulded cill courses at 1st and 2nd floors. Cornice between 3rd and 4th floors, becoming banded cill course at corner block. Corniced eaves course balustraded and stepped parapet at corner block. 2-storey corniced canted bays with fielded panels. Slightly advanced consoled, corniced and keystoned round arched doorpieces, narrow sidelights and plain fanlights. Architraved bracketed and corniced windows at 1st floor, pedimented windows to corner block. Architraved surrounds at 3rd floor, tripartite windows above canted bays. Small segmental windows with shouldered surrounds at 4th floor (attic storey).

W (WALKER STREET) ELEVATION: 4 storeys, 5 bays, slightly advanced outer bays. String course at 1st floor between windows. Round arched surrounds to main doorway with plain fanlight over. Round arched recessed surrounds at ground floor outer bays. Architraved, corniced and bracketed openings at 1st floor, some pedimented.

REAR ELEVATION: 4 storeys, 10 bays to E advanced. Squared coursed rubble with some ashlar quoins, cills and rybats. Some advanced single storey bays at ground floor; flat roofed with rounded corners. Regular fenestration, some tripartite windows at ground and 1st floors.

INTERIOR: original later Victorian classical interiors retained in part with later conversion to office space. Small entrance vestibules behind main doorway with glazed inner screen and doorway. Cantilevered half-turn stairs to back right of plan with corniced and decorated cupola over. Detailed cornicing at ground 1st and 2nd floors; floreate and egg and dart mouldings. Detailed plaster strapwork to some ceilings. Some later alterations with suspended ceilings and partitions.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows, with some 4-pane timber sash and case windows at 4th floor. Double pitch M-section roof; grey slates. Corniced ashlar gable end and ridge stacks with modern clay cans. Cast-iron railings on ashlar copes edging basement recess to street. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

A well detailed Victorian terrace with prominent canted bays, and asymmetrical bay arrangement. The terrace demonstrates a unified composition and completes the scheme for the Walker Estate. This design set the precedent for the later northern parts of the street where Peddie and Kinnear translated Lessel's design into graeco Italian terraces. (See separate listing).

John Lessels secured the control over the Walker Estate in 1850, only 4 years after he had set up practice on his own in 1846. He later went on to work for the City Improvement Trust in Edinburgh, and gained a wide experience of residential design with further designs in both the old and new towns of Edinburgh as well as some large commissions such as significant alterations to George Watson's Hospital.

(List description revised 2009 as part of re-survey.)

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17804548

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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