Waverley House, 35 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Description

William Playfair, designed 1820-4. No 35 built between 1823- early 1830s. Part of extremely long 121-bay palace front terrace of townhouses with arched and rusticated ground floor; to centre, 3-storey section punctuated by three 3-storey and attic Corinthian colonnaded pavilions; to left and right flanking 3-storey balustraded sections leading to 3-storey sections with 3-storey and attic Ionic colonnaded pavilions; 2-storey balustraded sections to outer left and right; basements to all houses. Droved ashlar to basement; V-chamfered rustication to ground floor; polished ashlar to upper floors; predominantly coursed squared rubble with dressed margins to rear elevation. To principal elevation: base course; dividing band between basement and ground floor; impost course to ground floor; dividing band between ground and 1st floors; to 1st floor, narrow band course broken by window to each bay; band courses above 2nd floor; eaves cornice; balustraded parapet. Regular fenestration to principal elevation; predominantly regular fenestration to rear elevation; to front elevation, to ground floor, round-headed openings in round-headed overarches; panelled aprons to 1st floor windows.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 4-bay, 3-storey, basement and attic elevation. To basement, windows to 1st, 3rd and 4th bays from left; to 2nd bay from left, timber and glazed door with blocked fanlight; all in segmentally-headed openings. To ground floor, to 2nd bay from left, steps and platt overarching basement recess leading to recessed timber-panelled and glazed door with segmental fanlight with petal style glazing. To 1st and 2nd floors, cast-iron balconnettes to windows. To roof, pilastered timber dormer with 4 bipartite windows.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 3-bay elevation. Band course dividing ground and 1st floors; cornice and band course eaves dividing 2nd and attic floors; eaves cornice. To centre bay, advanced 3-storey extension with part-ogee leaded roof and further advanced section to ground floor. Predominantly bipartite and tripartite windows.

GLAZING etc: predominantly plate glass; to principal elevation, 12-pane glazing to basement; glazing predominantly in timber sash and case windows. M-roof with central valleys; graded grey slate; stone skews and skewputts. To W, mutual ridge stack with some octagonal flues to front elevation; to E, mutual corniced ashlar ridge stack; predominantly circular cans.

RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: to front, edging basement recess and platt, stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars, spear-head finials and distinctive circled border; wrought-iron lamp standard to right of platt. To rear, forming boundary of garden, random rubble wall with flat coping.

INTERIOR: subdivided into flats. To ground floor: to lobby, inlaid marble floor, timber panelling to walls, timber and marble chimneypiece, compartmented ceiling, excellent plasterwork, to left (leading to basement) ornamental timber and glazed door with wrought-iron embellished fanlight in round-arched opening with pilastered doorpiece, to right, (leading to inner hall) timber-panelled and glazed door and screen with umbrella fanlight set in basket-arched opening with coffered soffit, niches to sides and pilastered doorpiece; to former dining room, excellent plasterwork including to ceiling, classical stone chimneypiece; remainder of ground floor altered but some good later cornicing remains to kitchen. To 1st floor, to former drawing room, grey marble chimneypiece, excellent plasterwork including Adam style ceiling and borders, panels and plaques to walls; to front room (E), good plasterwork; rooms to rear much altered. To stairs and landing: cantilevered stone stairs with (probably later) timber balusters and newels; wrought-iron lamp bracket to 1st floor landing; round-arched pilastered doorpiece to 2nd floor landing; above stairwell, round cupola set in coffered dome; excellent plasterwork including swags and classical frieze below dome and bordered panels to stair and landing walls.

Statement of Interest

Part of the Calton A-Group.

Currently (2003) subdivided as flats.

35 Royal Terrace is thought to have connections to the Duncan family of Camperdown, and may have been built for the First Earl of Camperdown who was the son of the famous late 18th century naval hero Admiral Duncan.

Royal Terrace forms part of the showpiece of Playfair's Eastern New Town (or Calton) scheme, and as such is an important example of the work of one of Scotland's leading early 19th century architects. Playfair was one of the major driving forces of the Greek Revival in Edinburgh at this time, and his public commissions such as the National Monument, the Royal Institution and the National Gallery (see separate listings) gave strength to Edinburgh's reputation of the Athens of the North. The Calton Scheme was one of his few domestic commissions, and the variety of designs, different for each street, demonstrates Playfair's expertise with the Grecian style and his characteristic punctilious attention to detail. The railings are important as their design features distinctive elements which Playfair repeated in large areas of the Calton scheme. The massive scale of Royal Terrace, in conjunction with Playfair's characteristic attention to detail (for instance the decision to site houses on one side of the Terrace only, in order to capitalise on the spectacular views), make this one of his most impressive schemes. When designing Royal Terrace, Playfair also rejected the conventional palace front with its distinctive central pavilion; he instead chose a more subtle distribution of pavilions, creating a discreet accumulation of emphasis towards the centre of the terrace through the use of attic storeys and Ionic and Corinthian Orders.

The origins of the Eastern New Town, which was to occupy the east end of Calton Hill and lands to the north of it on the ground between Easter Road and Leith Walk, lie in a 'joint plan for building' which three principal feuars (Heriot's Hospital, Trinity Hospital and Mr Allan of Hillside) entered into in 1811. In 1812 a competition was advertised for plans for laying out the grounds in question. Thirty-two plans were received, displayed and reported on by a variety of people, including eight architects. Eventually, it was decided that none of the plans was suitable. However, it was a more general report by William Stark (who died shortly after submitting it) which caught the attention of the Commissioners and formed the basis of the final scheme. Stark's central argument stressed the importance of planning around the natural contours and features of the land rather than imposing formal, symmetrical street plans upon it. After several years of little or no progress, in 1818 the Commissioners finally selected William Henry Playfair, Stark's former pupil, to plan a scheme following his master's Picturesque ideals.

The resulting scheme, presented to the Commissioners in 1819, preserved the view of and from Calton Hill by the creation of a limited triangular development of three single-sided terraces on the hill itself. These looked over a huge radial street pattern, centred on the gardens of Hillside Crescent, on the land to the north. The feuing of these lower lands started well, with Elm Row, Leopold Place, Windsor Street and the west side of Hillside Crescent being built fairly swiftly. However, demand for the feus faltered severely, due to the growing popularity of new properties being built to the west of the New Town. This had a particularly bad effect on Royal Terrace, where construction stopped for 20 years, leaving 2 large gaps in the Terrace and a further 3 unbuilt feus to the west end. The fate of the whole Calton scheme was sealed in 1838, when it was decided that feuars should pay poor-rates to both Edinburgh and Leith. This virtually halted development for the next thirty years. The result of all these problems was that very little of Playfair's original scheme was ever built. When building resumed in the 1880s, some of Playfair's original street lines were adhered to, as was the case with Hillside Crescent, and in others such as Brunton Place, Brunswick Street, Hillside Street (originally to be a longer street called Hopeton Street), and Wellington Street (also curtailed). However, due to piecemeal residential, industrial and transport developments immediately to the north, it would have been impossible to further follow Playfair's original layout, even if this had been considered desirable.

External Links

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