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Summary

Description

Later 18th century. Semi-detached house on elevated site above road; 3-bay, 2-storey and attic (single storey and attic to rear) with late 19th century single storey extension to E. Stuccoed (rubble to rear, timber and painted brick extension) with polished ashlar margins. Base course; band course dividing ground and 1st floor; eaves course. Raised long and short quoins. Regular fenestration.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: timber-panelled door with letterbox fanlight, flanked to left by window, to right by part glazed timber-panelled door. To left, single piended dormer to roof.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: smaller additional window between left and central bay.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: 2-bay, 2-storey elevation. Extension wing to far right.

GLAZING etc: predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows; plate glass glazing to extension; 4-pane glazing in timber sash and case window to dormer. Dormer has timber fascia with grey slate haffits and roof. 3 rooflights to S elevation, 2 rooflights to N elevation. Pitched roof; graded grey slate; stone skews and skewputts. Part stuccoed, part rendered gablehead stack with octagonal cans to E gable.

GATEWAY AND GATE: forming principal access to property, set in E boundary wall, below level of house. Droved jambs with chamfered inner edges; polished lintel. Elaborate wrought iron gate incorporating the words 'ROCK HOUSE'.

BOUNDARY WALLS: to S; low random rubble wall with flat ashlar copes. To E; walls flanking steps up to house, random rubble, flat ashlar copes. Running N to S, high random rubble wall, round-headed arched over steps. To N, random rubble wall.

Statement of Special Interest

A-Group with Nos 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 13 Calton Hill.

Important as one of the few remaining examples of early tenement design outside the Old and New towns, this house stands on land feued in the 1760s to John Horn, wright, and William Pirnie, bricklayer, and was possibly built by the same.

This building is one of the last remains of the old Calton or Caldtoun Village, which formed the heart of the Barony of Calton. This was, before the development of Waterloo Place and the Regent Bridge, a community quite remote (both in social and infrastructure terms) from the City of Edinburgh proper. The Regent Bridge and Waterloo Place development resulted in the demolition of many of the old houses of Calton Burgh. In the 1970s, the remaining old village houses on the lower portion of the north side of Calton Hill were demolished.

Rock House is also of considerable interest due to its links to historical events in the development of photography. In 1843 Rock House was owned by the scientist Robert Adamson, who in the same year formed a partnership with the artist David Octavius Hill. Their initial objective was to use the newly invented calotype process of photography to record individual portraits of over 400 ministers involved in the founding of the Free Church of Scotland, an event which Hill had undertaken to record in a massive painting. However, they soon diversified, and began to photograph subjects as diverse as the literati of Edinburgh, architectural subjects and working class scenes, most famously the fishing community of Newhaven. They are widely credited with having established the use of photography as an art form rather than just a chemical process. In their short partnership of just 3 years, Hill and Adamson produced thousands of photographs, many taken in the studio they set up at Rock House. In 1848, following Adamson's untimely death, Hill took over Rock House and the studio. He continued in photography, but his work never attained the quality of that resulting from his partnership with Adamson.

Rock House continued as a photographic studio until 1945, having passed through the hands of several photographers including Francis Caird Inglis. While the original studio/workshop building is no longer extant, a later outbuilding currently (2002) stands on the site.

References

Bibliography

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