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Summary

Description

J C Walker, 1865-68 with later alterations and additions (including those done after the death of William Hay (1811-1888

. 2-storey with attic, French-Gothic style villa on corner of Promenade and Brunstane Road North. Lightly tooled sandstone with polished dressings; squared and snecked sandstone to rear (SE and SW) elevations. Base course.

NW (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 3 bays irregularly disposed; window to each floor in every bay unless otherwise stated. Panelled door to centre, plate glass rectangular fanlight above; moulded architraved doorpiece. Date stone with monograms above: "AD 1865" with hoodmould over. Narrow window at 1st floor above with corbelled ashlar balcony; cast-iron window guard. Profile cast-iron guttering with cast-iron brackets; French pavilion roof. Bay to right slightly advanced and gabled; round-arched window set in gablehead. Later bay to left slightly advanced; red sandstone advanced full-height bipartite window, moulded string course between ground and 1st floor, moulded cill course to 1st floor; balustraded wallhead parapet.

NE (PROMENADE) ELEVATION: 2-bay. Gabled bay to right slightly advanced; 2-storey canted window with moulded dividing string course, moulded cill course to 1st floor, cast-iron profile guttering; swept piended roof with cast-iron brattishing; round-arched window set in gablehead. Full-height canted window in bay to left; squared at ground, canted at 1st floor's semi-hexagonal roof with fish-scale banding; cast-iron profile guttering with brackets at eaves.

SW ELEVATION: projecting 2-storey bay to centre; conservatory at bay to left (with original vine growing inside); single storey outbuildings added to gabled bay to right.

SE ELEVATION: later 2-storey, gabled addition to centre; lean-to single storey addition, bay to left; bay to right slightly advanced.

Plate glass timber sash and case windows. Complex grey slate roof (intersecting pitched roofs). French pavilion roof with banded diamond and fish-scale slates and decorative wrought-iron brattishing; timber dormers to NW and NE; flat roof to later addition to bay to left (NW elevation). Jerkin head roof dormer, bay to left (with round-arched window). Coped ashlar stacks: gablehead stack to SW; ridge stack to NE; wallhead stack to SE.

INTERIOR: encaustic tiles to hall and vestibule (incorporating family coat of arms as motif). Fine etched and painted glass round-arched (Whitby?) stair window. Cast-iron barley sugar balusters in place. Decorative plaster cornices (high relief except to later addition to NW elevation). Most original chimneypieces in situ but boarded up. Original veined black chimneypiece to sitting room (formerly dining room); original white marble chimneypiece (of grander design), to drawing room, with cast-iron segmental-arched and ornamental tiled grate (now with modern gas fire in front).

BOUNDARY WALLS: sandstone with coping, formerly with railings to NW; tall squared and snecked sandstone walls with rounded coping, with later entrance to modern garage to NW; modern timber gate with reused decorative cast-iron panel to pedestrian gateway to NE.

OUTBUILDINGS: squared and snecked sandstone laundry to SE of present garden with lean-to roof. Single storey additions to SW, formerly coal shed, also hen and duck house.

ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENTS: located in garden possibly from St Giles, High Street.

Statement of Special Interest

The name, Rabbit Hall is one taken from the old farmstead which stood formerly where Portobello Old and Windsor Place Church now stands in Bellfield Street. No plans survive, but the present owner believes that her grandfather, Mr William Hay, was the architect. The similarity between this villa and its neighbours to the east, along the Promenade, would suggest that they were by the same designer. These two villas (Nos 76 and 77 Promenade) were the work of J C Walker and he exhibited them at RSA. The house suffered from billeting during the 2nd World War when partitions were put up subdividing the larger reception rooms. Most of these alterations have been reversed. The gas lighting was upgraded to electric just after the 1st World War. A watercolour picture of the house ( possibly pre-dating the erection of the house), shows it prior to the alterations to the NW elevation. The conservatory was not built as shown in the picture; a window is shown at 1st floor facing NE of the tower, bay to centre, NW elevation; no dormers are shown to the tower itself and there are intricate ridge tiles and cast iron finials to each gable. The current owner's grandmother wanted more light in the ground floor sitting room and 1st floor drawing room and that it was at her instigation that the alteration was made to the NW elevation after her husband's death.

Mr Hay, the first owner of the property, carried out some work at St Giles which would explain the fragments found in the garden.

References

Bibliography

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