Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey and attic 4-bay symmetrical Baronial tenement with shop to ground floor, crenellated parapet and 4 finialled, segmentally-pedimented dormers to attic. Squared and snecked lightly stugged sandstone with polished dressings (painted to ground). Moulded corbel table to 1st floor, stepping up over blank panels between windows; moulded corbel table below parapet. Stop-chamfered openings. Regularly fenestrated. Timber-panelled door to flats to left with plate glass fanlight; 2-leaf timber-panelled storm door and recessed glazed door with plate glass fanlight to shop.

Plate glass to shop; 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows above. Grey slates; stone skews; corniced end stacks with circular cans.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn 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. 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 adaptation (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. Dean of Guild Drawings show that the design for Nos 42-48 were modified - raised a storey and simplified - before execution.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17792622

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)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)