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Summary

Description

George Washington Browne, 1898; additions and alterations on subdivision into 2, leadbetter, Fairley and Reid, 1946, and into 3, A G D Milligan, 1970. 2-storey, 3-bay, attic and raised basement villa with Queen Anne and 17th century details. Rectangular-plan with projecting entrance bay and canted windows. Red sandstone ashlar course, deep eaves band to rear, canted bays and dressings; dry-dashed walls. Moulded and chamfered window surrounds and ashlar mullions.

N ELEVATION: 3-bay, gabled entrance bay at centre. Door on E return of bay (No 35) moved on subdivision to 1st floor (1946) with forestair continued up and oval oculus (formerly lighting outer bay to left of principal floor) pushed out under stair; 9-panelled door with studded detailing. Forestair dry dashed with stone steps and ashlar dressings.Bipartite window to principal floor of bay, single window to 1st floor and corniced window in gablehead bearing marriage lintel initialled GWB AND JBB; tall wallheads stack on W return. Single windows lightening principal and 1st floors in bay to right, bipartite at 1st floor to outer left. Cellar door with basket-arched lintel under forestair.

S ELEVATION: outer bays with full height canted, corniced windows with pulvinated friezes, lit by mullioned windows to each floor, those of principal and 1st floor with side lights. Centre bay with window at ground, and with round-arched windows to floors above (2-light to principal floor, 3-light to 1st floor). 3 Queen Anne style timber dormers, that to centre narrower and added later.

E ELEVATION: round-arched door at basement (No 39) to right of centre flanked by later window to left; further forestair added to right (1970), curling around existing and leading to door in place of window at principal floor (No 37), flanked to left by bipartite.

W ELEVATION: full-height canted window to left of centre with single windows to each face; parapet to balcony of attic storey with round-arched door to balcony. Lead-paned glazing to strategic casement windows and small-pane glazing to remaining timber sash and case and casements windows. Various effective combinations of casement and sash and case windows in same opening. Red sandstone ashlar stacks pierced on wall-plane by dry-dashed gablehead. Full complement of clay cans. Rosemary tiled roofs with swept eaves.

INTERIOR: fine decorative scheme retained with Queen Anne and Glasgow Style details, altered minimally on subdivision by redefinition of room functions. Decorative glazed and leaded panels to vestibule door (No 35) with some coloured glass; panelled doors. Timber stair balustrade with arched link to newel posts. Fine Glasgow Style window furniture to leaded windows. Panelled chimneypiece and overmantel to former bedroom (No 35) with Dutch (?) tiles. Decorative geometric plasterwork. Segmental vault in former dressing room to S at centre (No 35). Built in cupboards, one with decoartive lead-glazed doors. Several chimneypieces altered. Steps to dormer windows; part-coved ceiling in former day nursery.

BOUNDARY walls gates and gatepiers: rubble walls with semicircular coping. Fine wrought-iron gates and cage-gatepiers to No 35.

Statement of Special Interest

Formerly known as "The Limes" and numbered 17 Blackford Road, the villa was built for Washington Browne himself, marking his second marriage. He had worked with Wardrop and Anderson on the Queen Anne schemes in the Braid area of Edinburgh during the 1880s, contributing crucially to the designs, bringing his knowledge of the style from his time in London with one of its leading protagonists, John James Stevenson. The perspective illustrations in Academy Architecture show the building before it was built with dormerhead instead of gablehead crowning the entrance bay. The planning of the house was geared for family habitation with the attic floor given over the nurseries and nurse's room (the Browne's had four children). Minor alterations were carried out in number 35 by Simpson and Brown, 1981 and 1982.

References

Bibliography

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