Description

1786-92. 3-storey basement and attic 8-bay classical tenement on corner site. Broached cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. Long and short quoins at S corner; band course above 1st floor; eaves cornice. Ground floor built out as modern plate glass shop to 2 left bays. Corniced architraved doors to 3rd (en suite with shopfront), 4th and 6th bays from left. Centre door (common stair) with 3-pane fanlight; No 56 with delicate metal fanlight; centre right window at ground enlarged. Incongruous full-width slate-hung dormer to 3 left bays with pair of canted piend-roofed windows; canted piend-roofed dormer to far right.

Coursed rubble gable, rendered at ground, with windows to centre and left at ground and 1st floor.

12-pane timber sash and case windows. Ashlar coped skews; rendered stacks; grey slates.

INTERIOR: modernised shop at ground, with direct access to original tight central stair (also accessed from front door) with plain square banisters; 2-bay room at 1st floor with grey marble Grecian chimneypiece. No 56 extended to rear at basement and ground; Hall with inner pilastered screen with fanlight, pilastered archway; stair on axis with plain square banisters; former Dining Room with earlier 19th century black slate chimneypiece and overdoors; SW room chimneypiece with marble slips and cast-iron grate; former 3-bay Drawing Room with panelled dado and fine white marble chimneypiece with engaged Ionic columns and central tableau (Leda and Swan); further front room at 1st floor with reeded chimneypiece and cast-iron Gothic grate; corridor created to NW giving access to No 58 (see separate listing). Both flats (No 54) divided internally into 2; that to N mostly refurbished, that to S unseen 1995.

RAILINGS: cast-iron spearhead railings.

Statement of Interest

A large quantity of original crown glass survives. No 56 interconnects with the offices at Nos 58-62. A Group with Nos 58-62 (even nos) Frederick Street as a significant surviving part of the original fabric of Edinburgh?s New Town, one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17806279

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

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)