Description

W W Robertson of HM Office of Works, 1892-4. Single and 2-storey, 2-bay cream sandstone, coursed rubble gate lodge built as part of a group of buildings forming the Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill. In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: all later additions to the south of the gatehouse lodge.

The north (entrance) elevation has a central doorway with a 2-leaf panelled door, plate glass fanlight, cornice and pediment with foliate detail. There is an advanced bipartite window to the gabled bay to the outer left and a single window at the 1st floor above.

Plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Grey slate pitched and piended roofs with coped wallhead stacks.

The interior of the lodge was seen in 2015 and is modernised to form office space.

There is a pedestrian gateway adjoining the lodge to the north with a lugged architrave, cornice and panel carved "Royal Observatory" and an ornately decorated wrought iron gate. A pair of banded gatepiers are surmounted by cast iron lamps and carved heraldic panels inscribed "VR", dentilled cornice and pedimental caps to piers; decorative foliate pattern lamp standards with crown finials; pair of highly decorative wrought iron gates with "RO".

A high coped rubble boundary wall surrounds the Observatory and all outbuildings with cast iron railings to the north boundary.

Statement of Interest

The Edinburgh Royal Observatory site was designed and built from 1892-4 as an outstanding and unique group of buildings within a walled compound forming the new Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill. The main observatory building was designed as a highly detailed bespoke design for a nationally important scientific facility and the site continues to be in the same use. The gate lodge building complements the main observatory and other associated buildings and is accordingly highly detailed and constructed of high quality materials; the gates and gatepiers are highly decorative examples of their type.

The Royal Observatory and its associated complex of buildings were built on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh from 1892-4 and the complex first appears on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey Map of Edinburghshire, (surveyed 1894, published 1897).

The new observatory was built following a donation of astronomical instruments and literature to the City of Edinburgh from the 26th Earl of Crawford from his private observatory on the family's estate at Dunecht, Aberdeenshire. Since 1822 the Edinburgh Royal Observatory had been housed in the Observatory Building on Calton Hill however by 1888 its efficiency had been affected by inadequate buildings, outmoded instruments and by what had become an unsuitable site.

In 1888 a Royal Commission recommended that the Edinburgh Observatory should cease to be a National Scottish Institution and that its buildings should be handed over to the University. It was this threat to the future of the Observatory that prompted the Earl of Crawford to offer his gift of the instruments and astronomical library from his own personal estate on the condition that the Government build a new building on the Blackford Hill site and maintain it to ensure a future for the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. The publicly funded site was designed to act as a public monument to astronomy as well as a state-of-the-art research centre for the time.

The resulting brief for the architect W W Robertson (1845-1907) was to create a building to adequately house the technical instruments and library whilst also designing the group of buildings to a high level of detail and design quality befitting the buildings' status as a public monument for the city of Edinburgh. The carved stone Zodiacal designs to the main observatory building are finely detailed and the stone towers with their copper domes are both practical and highly decorative. The multi- period site continues to be in use for the purpose for which it was built and is a nationally important for astronomical research and study in the UK and is now (2105) occupied by the Scientific Technologies Facilities Council and the University of Edinburgh. The telescopes were designed and built by Grubb Parsons of Newcastle: to the east tower is a 36 inch telescope (referring to the size of its main mirror) built in 1928, which, when installed in 1930, was the largest operating telescope in Britain; to the west is a Schmidt telescope built in 1930 but bought by the Observatory in 1951.

The architect Walter Wood Robertson (1845-1907) was born in Elie in Fife and studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. In his early career he spent time articled to the offices of both Peddie and Kinnear and Brown and Wardrop before spending some time working in London. Robertson is best remembered for his large

Post Office commissions at Perth, Greenock and Dundee executed from 1897-1898, however the observatory site, completed a few years earlier, is also one of his most prominent commissions.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2016. Previously listed as 'Observatory Road, Blackford Hill, The Royal Observatory, Gate Lodge, Gates, Gatepiers and Boundary Walls'.

In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: all later additions to the south of the gatehouse lodge.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17810191

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

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)