Description
1790; some 19th century internal alterations. 3-storey attic and basement, 4-bay former terraced classical house. Droved Craigleith sandstone ashlar. Channelled rustication at ground; long and short quoins. Moulded 1st floor cill course; moulded architraves, corniced at 1st floor; mutuled cornice. Broader right bay with stop-fluted pilastered doorpiece containing pilastered tripartite doorway with cornice stepping back over 2-leaf panelled door and large semi-circular fanlight (metal decorative glazing); frieze fluted with rosettes. Droved basement. Row of modern skylights to roof. Small decorative cast-iron balconies to 1st and 2nd floor windows.
Coursed rubble 3-storey and attic 3-bay rear elevation. Tripartite windows to right bay; centre bay with round-headed window at ground, altered windows to upper floors. Large piend-roofed dormer to right, skylights to left. Scattering of small cast-iron balconies.
Projecting single storey basement wing to E.
Timber sash and case 15-pane windows, 12-pane to 2nd floor. Ashlar coped mutual skews and dressed stone mutual stacks; formerly 2 to W (flanking apex), that to rear completely removed; grey slates.
INTERIOR: very fine decorative plasterwork on most surfaces throughout, particularly on ceilings to all but 2 rooms on the ground and 1st floors; marble chimneypieces to suit; some 19th century enrichments and alterations to ease circulation. GROUND FLOOR: Entrance Hall with late 19th century Adam revival chimneypiece and grate; walls with 6 oval reliefs of figures on walls; ceiling is hexagon within circle. Front room with plaster panelled walls, dado rails, corniced overdoors with figure tablets and fine carved white marble chimneypiece with quarter reeded columns, rosettes and central tablet with urn (fabulous brass register grate missing, see NMRS); ceiling is elaborate oval. Rear left room similar, pilastered tripartite window with swagged frieze, simple reeded white marble chimneypiece with veined orange marble slips; ceiling is circle containing 4 tableau panels. Rear right room with dado rail, simple reeded grey marble chimneypiece and gib door to dressing room at centre rear; ceiling is concave square with 4 trophy panels. Walk-in safe in central hall (see Notes). STAIRHALL: top-lit cantilevered stair with quarter landings rising to 2nd floor; Vitruvian scroll around stairwell at 2nd floor; square iron banisters with wrought-iron infills; enriched square cupola with pendentives supporting dome containing pitched skylights; whole elaborately enriched with trophy and figure panels. 1ST FLOOR: suite of 3 Drawing Rooms with dados, mid 19th century applied plaster panels and consoled corniced door surrounds (some copied in early 19th century). Front left (principal) room with early 19th century black fossilised marble chimneypiece with Tuscan Doric columns, lion masks and reeded frieze; single door to front right room with parliament hinges, folding double doors to rear room; ceiling is panelled circle with end compartments, containing figures, etc. Front right (small) room with swagged frieze to dentilled cornice, simple reeded white marble chimneypiece (gib door to right); ceiling as ground floor rear right. Large rear left room divided longitudinally to right of doors by inserted Ionic screen, cornice en suite with principal room, simple moulded white marble chimneypiece with brown marble slips; ceiling is relatively simple circular band; pair of doors beyond screen to landing and rear right room, also half a window (suggesting that screen is later slapping). Rear right room with simple beaded white marble chimneypiece with orange slips, dado, extra half window at centre, plain ceiling (room presumably enlarged, and ceiling perhaps destroyed, see Notes). UPPER FLOORS: at 2nd floor, room at each corner with altered central dressing rooms between at front and back, and elegant curving central stair with square iron banisters and mahogany hand rail to attic; cornices, dados and corniced chimneypieces to corner rooms; rear right room with fine iron register grate with lion masks; 2 left rooms en suite. Many attic rooms, some with simple dados and cornices (1 to rear with large dormer and 1930s chimneypiece).
RAILINGS AND LAMP STANDARDS: cast-iron spearhead railings and pair of cast-iron lamp standards (en suite with Nos 65-7).
Not originally provided with mews (see Kirkwood); now with large car park deck to rear.
Statement of Special Interest
Built for the 7th Earl of Wemyss, an obsessive builder then occupied with Gosford. The grandest house in the street after Baron Orde?s at No 8; unlike No 8 however it is essentially just a larger and smarter version of a standard New Town house. The house constitutes a significant surviving part of the original fabric of Edinburgh?s New Town, one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain; Queen Street was built to take advantage of the northern views, and has survived remarkably unaltered to this day. There are significant similarities with Nos 28, 29, 48, 66 and 67 Queen Street, which may all be by James Nisbet; for instance the marble chimneypiece in the front room at ground has a direct counterpart in
No 66, which also uses the same orange marble as found throughout
No 64. The interior alterations are interesting, clearly adapting the house for very large scale entertaining, and there are inconsistencies in the finishing which suggest quite significant alterations (note particularly the finishing in the staircase well); there seem to have been minor alterations in the early and mid 19th century, and a major alteration circa 1900 when the service stair leading at least to the 1st floor was removed from the centre rear, at this time the safe and dressing room were installed at ground, the large rear Drawing Room at 1st floor was extended by the insertion of its Ionic screen and the adjoining rear room was also enlarged. Many of the door handles used to be brass with lion masks (clearly a theme), but these have been removed. Now interconnects at attic level with No 65 (see separate listing).