Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey and attic 7-bay symmetrical Scots Baronial tenement block with shops to ground floor; corbelled-out bowed oriels to 1st and 2nd floors in outer bays, corbelled to square fish-scale-slated ogee-roofed caphouses with weathervanes at attic. Ashlar to ground floor, lightly stugged squared and snecked sandstone with polished dressings above. Continuous cornice to ground floor; machicolated corbel course to eaves. Roll-moulded segmental-arched openings to ground floor; timber-panelled door to flats with plate glass fanlight. Windows above in roll-moulded stop-chamfered surrounds. 5 finialled, gabled segmental-arched dormer windows to attic.

REAR ELEVATION: machicolated corbel table to attic floor; crowstepped gable to right, finialled dormerheaded windows breaking eaves to left.

Plate glass to shops; 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows above. Grey slates. Corniced stacks with circular cans.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. The site was originally intended to be a public hall, but in 1862 the Lord Provost, Duncan McLaren, proposed the building (in memory of Prince Albert) of a larger public hall, to be constructed between the City Chambers and Bank Street. Known briefly as Lord Cockburn Street, Cockburn Street was named after the doyen of conservationists, Lord Cockburn, who died in 1854. It 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. The rear elevation of Nos 47-53 was designed to be part of the romantic silhouette of the Old Town, viewed from the Norrth. 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 Q17811539

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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