Description

Office of Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, or a former assistant (see Notes), dated 1891. Symmetrical pair of semi-detached villas with swept-roofed centre between slightly advanced gabled end bays; entrances to side elevations; brick scullery outshots at rear to centre. Large canted windows to ground floor of gabled bays; pedimented dormers to front; flat-roofed dormers to rear; shouldered wallhead stacks and tall segmental-pedimented staircase windows to side elevations; deep bracketed eaves; plain bargeboards to gables. Painted harl with painted sandstone ashlar window margins and quoins and red sandstone door architraves. Base course. Strip quoins, slightly raised window margins; cornices over 1st-floor windows to gables. Timber panelled doors in roll-moulded corniced architraves, lintels inscribed with date, 1891. Tiled and panelled lobbies with inner doors glazed with bevelled glass. Regular fenestration to front and rear. Timber boarded back doors to scullery outshots.

Predominantly 12- and 8-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows; leaded glazing in timber casements to canted windows. Prominent corniced and coped stacks with strip-quoins and tall red and yellow clay cans. Graded grey slate with red terracotta ridge tiles. Cast-iron down pipes with decorative hoppers.

BOUNDARY WALL: coped random rubble boundary wall with ashlar gatepiers and decorative cast-iron gates.

Statement of Interest

B-Group with 7 and 9 Woodhall Road. A very attractive pair of semi-detached villas in a prominent position at the corner of Woodhall Road and Dreghorn Loan. This pair, and the pair next door at 7 and 9 Woodhall Road were developed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson in the early 1890s. Unfortunately the architect of these houses is unknown. It is unlikely that Anderson, then at the height of his career, and the most eminent architect in Edinburgh, would have designed these houses himself; it is much more likely that they were designed by one of his pupils or assistants. In 1890 George Mackie Watson was Anderson's Principal Assistant, Robert Lorimer, James Jerdan, Victor Horsburgh and John J Joass were his other assistants, and his pupils were Alfred Lightly MacGibbon and Frank W Deas. It is also possible that Anderson gave the work to one of his former assistants or pupils, as he is known to have done this with two pairs of semi-detached villas that he had built at 3-7 Thorburn Road (not listed), which were designed by Victor Horsburgh or Frank Deas.

Sir Robert Rowand Anderson was largely responsible for the development of this part of Colinton as a fashionable suburb, as he was one of the first and principal feuers of land from James Gillespie's Hospital. In about 1875 he had built a double villa at 11-13 Woodhall road, and in 1879 he built his own house Allermuir at 15 Woodhall Road, and another large house, 2 Barnshot Road, next door. During the next twenty to thirty years, he built numerous other houses in the area, particularly at the Northern end of Barnshot Road, and along Woodhall Road (see list descriptions for these streets). A quick inspection of the Sasine records suggests that he may have acquired even more feus towards the Western end of Woodhall road. It was by no means unusual for architects of this period to act as property developers, but this aspect of Anderson?s activities has been largely ignored by his biographers. These villas are therefore an important testament to this little-known aspect of his work.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77779956

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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