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Summary

Description

David Cousin and John Lessels, 1869. 4-storey, 3-bay Scots Baronial tenement with shop to ground. Squared and snecked sandstone ashlar. Windows at 1st floor corniced with strapwork pediment to centre; stepped string course above. Dentiled corbel table to 4th floor; steep-gabled dormer heads breaking eaves with thistle finial at centre apex.

Gated entrance to Tendricks Wynd at ground floor left, later shop front with plate glass to right.

8-pane glazing to timber sash and case windows. Grey Scottish slate. Broad end stacks. Clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Special Interest

No 48 and 50 High Street is a good example of early City Improvement Act construction and integrated tenement design and an important part of the streetscape. The building is part of a planned run of buildings designed by David Cousin and John Lessels which continues West to the corner and down Blackfriars Street. The use of the Scots Baronial style fits well into the surrounding streetscape, mirroring 18th century tenement design in the old town.

This particular part of the tenement run running is one of the few that was actually carried out by Cousin and Lessels in 1869. The tenements to either side were built by a number of other locally renowned architects at a slightly later date to the designs of Lessels and Cousin. John Lessels (1809-1883), who came from a family of successful Edinburgh builder-architects, was appointed joint architect to the City Improvement Trust in 1866 along with David Cousin, the City Architect. In response to the Improvement Act of 1867, they laid out plans for St Mary Street, Blackfriars Street, Jeffrey Street and Chambers Street which 'reflected Cousin's transition from pure Italian Renaissance to a mid Victorian freestyle also evident in his later bank-houses' (Dictionary of Scottish Architects). Throughout the 19th Century the High Street's prosperity declined as the nobility and middle classes moved out of the area in favour of the grandeur and improved facilities of Edinburgh's New Town. The Improvement Act of 1867 made efforts to address this, responding early on with large-scale slum clearance and redevelopment of entire street frontages.

The High Street is located at the heart of the Old Town and has World Heritage Site status. Historically the central focus of public, civic and commercial life within the city, the High Street contains many of Edinburgh's most distinguished buildings including St Giles Kirk and Parliament Hall (see separate listings). Its special architectural and historic interest as one of Edinburgh's primary thoroughfares is unparalleled.

List description updated at resurvey (2007/08).

References

Bibliography

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