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Summary

Description

David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, 1875, with later alterations and additions by James Jerdan, 1889. 4-storey 4-bay tenement block with shops at ground floor and round-arched pend (Gilmour's Close) to centre. Coursed ashlar with polished dressings (painted to ground). Moulded cill course at 1st and 3rd floors. Original shop fronts with shoulder-arched openings (door with plate glass fanlight flanked by 2-pane plate glass windows to left; 2-pane plate glass window to right of pend, narrow door to outer right). Corniced windows in moulded surrounds at 1st floor, tabbed at 2nd (regularly fenestrated). Paired windows in finialled gabled dormerheads (crowstepped to right); decorative panels in gables (dated 1998 to left). Decoratively corbelled wallhead stack to centre. Modern harled flats adjoining to rear (Gilmour's Close).

4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Corniced, chamfered wallhead and ridge stacks with decorative circular cans.

Statement of Special Interest

Built as lodging houses for the poor, with shops to ground floor. The MacGibbon and Ross plan shows a series of little flats with narrow corridors with doors to external cast-iron balconies linked to stair towers, with external WC's at each level. Each shop had a single storey top-lit saloon to rear. James Jerdan's alterations of 1889 show the space opened up and turned into long dormitories, by the use of cast-iron beams, and the building of one tall brick stair tower with a cistern room and 'director's room' at the top. These alterations reflect the huge influx of immigrant labour (mainly from Ireland) in the later 19th century, many of whom ended up in the Grassmarket. Restored 1998.

References

Bibliography

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