Description

John Lessels, built 1877; later alterations to No. 25 by A G Sydney Mitchell, 1883. 4-storey and basement terrace comprising unified façade of 2-bay townhouses in plain classical style with main-door and common stair flats behind. Advanced bays to centre, pilastered with channelled ashlar to pilasters at 1st floor. Basement area to street including some vaulted cellars and retaining walls. Sandstone ashlar, channelled at ground floor. Entrance platts oversailing basement. Banded base course. Banded cill course at 1st and 2nd floors. Corniced band course at 3rd floor. Corniced eaves course. Architraved doorways with plain rectangular fanlights, narrow sidelights and deep stone brackets supporting cornice above. 2-storey corniced and consoled, 3-light canted bays with fielded panels. Architraved bracketed and corniced windows at 1st floor. Moulded shouldered architraves at 2nd floor, plain shouldered architraved windows at 3rd floor.

REAR ELEVATION: with some later additional attic storeys. Regular squared rubble with some ashlar quoins and cills. Regular fenestration with some tripartite windows at 1st floor. Some advanced bays at ground and 1st floors.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Predominantly timber 6 panel doors. Mansard 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.

INTERIOR: interior typified by highly decorative classical decorative scheme with detailed cornicing throughout ground and 1st floors. Converted for later office and residential use (2008).

MEWS, ANCILLARY BUILDINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: extensive range of single storey ancillary buildings to rear, some rubble and some rendered; mostly with peinded roofs. Coursed random rubble boundary walls, with some ashlar quoins and copes (some integrated with mews buildings). Some later additions.

Statement of Interest

These terraced townhouses form part of a well-detailed street incorporated into one of the later parts of the former Walker Estate. The design by Lessels is characteristic of later Victorian planning with large canted bays and fluent use of classical detailing. The well-detailed doorpieces and canted bay windows give the terrace a good rhythm, and are a key characteristic of the surrounding streetscape. The design set the precedent for the later northern parts of the street where Peddie and Kinnear translated Lessels' 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.

A G Sydney Mitchell completed internal alteration to No. 25 in 1883, which included the addition of a billiard room to the rear.

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

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17804718

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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