Description

Alex Cullen, 1903. 4-storey, 8-bay (above ground) tenement with shops at ground and commercial premises at 1st floor; ogee-roofed corner tower and Baroque detailing. Polished ashlar with squared and snecked rubble to sides and rear; ashlar dressings. Deep fascia and cornice to shops, eaves cornice. Round-headed door; some large round-headed windows with voussoirs; segmental and triangular pediments; stylised corbels. Chamfered arrises and stone mullions, timber transoms and mullions to round-arched windows.

W (VICAR STREET) ELEVATION: bay to left of centre at ground floor with round-headed doorpiece with 'VICAR CHAMBERS' under corbelled segmental hoodmould and blind panel (see Notes), deep-set panelled timber door, shops with fixed display windows in flanking bays (detail obscured by modern fascias), that to left with 2-leaf panelled timber door, plate glass fanlight and panelled soffit; further later broad Art Deco style doorpiece to outer right also under cornice. Vertically-emphasised bays above ground (grouped 1-2-1-2-2); bays 1, 7 and 8 each with 6-light round-headed window giving way to canted oriel windows, bay 8 also breaking eaves into finialled triangular pediment with flanking pinnacles and set-back polygonal tower with deep cornice and finialled lead roof. Bay 4 with single window at 1st floor giving way to keystoned semicircular pediment with flanking corbels at base of full-height chimneys, further single windows above set into vertical panel with keystone and triangular pediment, and flanked by tall stacks piercing eaves. Single windows to remaining bays, those to 2nd and 3rd floors set into panels.

N ELEVATION: plain gabled elevation with stacks flanking gablehead.

E (REAR) ELEVATION: flat-roofed single storey bays projecting at ground; largely regular fenestration to set-back face with 2 stair windows at centre (lower window altered).

4- and 6-pane glazing patterns over plate glass lower sashes to W and plate glass glazing to E, all in timber sash and case windows. Coped ashlar stacks with cans and ashlar-coped skews.

INTERIOR: stairway with decoratively-bordered ceramic brick dadoes and panelled timber doors with small-pane top lights to 1st floor. Plain cornices to shop at No 35.

Statement of Interest

No 31 (1st floor) was formerly the premises of Customs and Excise shipping agents, and until recently the panel (now blind) over the main door marked 'Vicar Chambers' held a timber-framed painting of ocean going liners. Lawson refers to the 'entry to the Grand Theatre' (1903-1929) but adds that "Today the Regal Cinema occupies the site".

The building was sold to the ABC Group and in 1934 all but the façade was demolished, replaced by the Regal Cinema on Princes Street by architect Charles J McNair. The original entrance to the Grand was replaced by the (now redundant) Art Deco entrance which led to the new cinema café.

List description updated 2010 as a result of the Theatres Thematic Study.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17816641

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

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover