Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. Asymmetrical 3-storey and attic Scots Baronial tenement block with crowstepped gabled block to Cockburn Street and spired roof to circular tower to Fleshmarket Close; shops to ground floor. Squared and snecked stugged sandstone with polished dressings. Continuous cornice to ground floor; stepped corbel courses beneath 2nd floor and attic windows (machicolated to attic floor of tower). Cantilevered gabled hood to 2-leaf timber door at No 59 (former hotel entrance). Stone-mullioned bipartite windows and date plaque (1864) to 1st floor; basket-arched windows to 2nd and attic floors; inscribed plaque (restored 1992) to 2nd floor. Fluted wallhead stack between asymmetrical crowstepped gable to left and fish-scale slated conical roof with finialled, pedimented dormers and weathervane to right.

Predominantly 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Corniced wallhead stacks.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. Formerly the Adelphi Hotel; marked as Star Hotel on 1877 OS map. 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. 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 Q17811559

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

• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)