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Summary

Description

David Cousin and James Lessels, 1887. 3-storey with mansard attic and basement, 3-bay principal elevation and 10-bays extending down hill to Guthrie Street, rectangular-plan, corner-sited, Scots Jacobean style former police training school with canted corner and ornate stonework to upper level. Polished sandstone ashlar. Corniced first floor band course; projecting eaves cornice with dentils and decorative carved stone brackets; 1st and 2nd floor cill course to Guthrie Street. Regular fenestration to principal elevations: segmental arched windows with corniced margins and bracketed hoodmoulds to front. Uniform side elevation with rectangular windows to ground and 1st floors, segmental-arched corniced windows to second floor and attic dormers. Segmental-arched windows with bars to basement and timber boarded doors to vehicle entrance. Irregular fenestration to rear.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: central recessed entrance doorway with curved glazing to principal elevation flanked by full-height windows (now partially infilled). Plain pilasters dividing bays at ground; giant pilasters with rosette motif capitals above. Pilastered, scroll bracketed dormers to attic with open segmental pediments. Central light well. Carved stone scroll pedimented tablet commemorating birthplace of Sir Walter Scott to side elevation.

Plate glass in timber sash and case windows to principal elevation; 4-pane glazing to side elevation; bank of rooflights to rear; modern glazed doors to main entrance. Grey slates to mansard with flat lead roof to centre. Corniced wallhead stack at SW corner with scrolled base. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: some good interior detailing survives amongst later 20th century office partitions. Decorative plaster brackets, timber boarding to window surrounds, early 19th century glazed office partitions, and stone stair to front section of building. Rear section of plainer construction with rough stone walls (painted), large cast-iron column and beam construction and rough timber-boarded ceilings. Timber-boarded attic room to rear with 5-light riveted steel roof trusses. Dog leg timber stair to basement with cast-iron banisters.

Statement of Special Interest

This building is a good example of Scots Jacobean Style and occupies a prominent corner position on Chambers Street opposite Edinburgh University and the Museum of Scotland. It has some finely detailed stonework and the large regimentally proportioned secondary elevation to Guthrie Street is particularly dynamic.

James Lessels (1834-1905) was Architect to the City Improvement Trust and the former police training school was implemented by him under this guise although the façade was designed as part of a larger scheme for Chambers Street by the Architect David Cousins (1809-1878). The carved tablet inscription reads 'Near this spot stood the house in which Sir Walter Scott was born 15th August 1771. Memorial Tablet erected by the town council in 1887. Sir Thos Clark Bart Lord Provost. James Lessels Architect.'

List description revised as part of Edinburgh Holyrood Ward resurvey, 2007/08.

References

Bibliography

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