Listed Building

The only legal part of the listing under the Planning (Listing Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 is the address/name of site. Addresses and building names may have changed since the date of listing – see 'About Listed Buildings' below for more information. The further details below the 'Address/Name of Site' are provided for information purposes only.

Address/Name of Site

28 ROYAL TERRACE INCLUDING RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLSLB49819

Status: Designated

Documents

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Summary

Category
A
Group Category Details
100000019 - A
Date Added
16/12/1965
Last Date Amended
14/12/1970
Local Authority
Edinburgh
Planning Authority
Edinburgh
Burgh
Edinburgh
NGR
NT 26597 74363
Coordinates
326597, 674363

Description

William Playfair, designed 1820-4. No 28 built between 1823- early 1830s. Part of extremely long 121-bay palace front terrace of townhouses with arched and rusticated ground floor; to centre, 3-storey section punctuated by three 3-storey and attic Corinthian colonnaded pavilions; to left and right flanking 3-storey balustraded sections leading to 3-storey sections with 3-storey and attic Ionic colonnaded pavilions; 2-storey balustraded sections to outer left and right; basements to all houses. Painted droved ashlar to basement; V-chamfered rustication to ground floor; polished ashlar to upper floors; predominantly coursed squared rubble with dressed margins to rear elevation. To principal elevation: base course; dividing band between basement and ground floor; impost course to ground floor; dividing band between ground and 1st floors; to 1st floor, narrow band course broken by window to each bay; band courses above 2nd floor; eaves cornice; balustraded parapet. Regular fenestration to principal elevation; predominantly regular fenestration to rear elevation; to ground floor, round-headed openings in round-headed overarches.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3-bay, 3-storey and basement elevation. To basement, segmentally headed window to right bay; to centre bay, timber panelled door with 3-light fanlight; to left bay, area under platt blocked in with wall with 3 windows. To ground floor, to left bay, steps and platt (conjoined with those of No 29) overarching basement recess leading to timber-panelled door with flanking margin lights and segmental fanlight with petal style glazing. To 1st floor, cast-iron balconnettes to windows.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 2-bay, 3-storey, and basement elevation. Band course dividing ground and 1st floors; eaves cornice; blocking course. Timber and glazed conservatory to ground floor

GLAZING etc: predominantly 12-pane glazing; to principal elevation, 17-pane glazing to ground floor and 15-pane glazing to 1st floor; glazing predominantly in timber sash and case windows. M-roof with central valley; graded grey slate; stone skews and skewputts. To W, mutual corniced ashlar ridge stack surmounted by linked octagonal flues to principal elevation; predominantly circular cans.

RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: to front, edging basement recess and platt, stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars, spear-head finials and distinctive circled border. To rear, forming boundary of garden, random rubble wall with predominantly flat coping.

INTERIOR: to ground floor: to lobby, polished stone floor, niche to left wall, good plasterwork, compartmented ceiling, leading through to inner hall, glazed door and screen with pilastered and corniced doorpiece; to former dining room, good plasterwork, classical grey stone fireplace, corniced doorpieces; to rear room, apsidal ended room with good plasterwork. To 1st floor: to L-shaped former drawing room, classical timber chimneypiece, good plasterwork including borders to walls; to rear room (W), good simple plasterwork, classical painted stone chimneypiece; to rear room (E), simple cornice. To stairs and landings: above stairs, oval cupola, cast-iron balusters, good plasterwork, liberal use of shallow relief foliate frieze to walls and side of landings; shallow relief decoration to underside of landings and stairs.

Statement of Special Interest

Part of the Calton A-Group.

Royal Terrace forms part of the showpiece of Playfair's Eastern New Town (or Calton) scheme, and as such is an important example of the work of one of Scotland's leading early 19th century architects. Playfair was one of the major driving forces of the Greek Revival in Edinburgh at this time, and his public commissions such as the National Monument, the Royal Institution and the National Gallery (see separate listings) gave strength to Edinburgh's reputation of the Athens of the North. The Calton Scheme was one of his few domestic commissions, and the variety of designs, different for each street, demonstrates Playfair's expertise with the Grecian style and his characteristic punctilious attention to detail. The railings are important as their design features distinctive elements which Playfair repeated in large areas of the Calton scheme. The massive scale of Royal Terrace, in conjunction with Playfair's characteristic attention to detail (for instance the decision to site houses on one side of the Terrace only, in order to capitalise on the spectacular views), make this one of his most impressive schemes. When designing Royal Terrace, Playfair also rejected the conventional palace front with its distinctive central pavilion; he instead chose a more subtle distribution of pavilions, creating a discreet accumulation of emphasis towards the centre of the terrace through the use of attic storeys and Ionic and Corinthian Orders.

The origins of the Eastern New Town, which was to occupy the east end of Calton Hill and lands to the north of it on the ground between Easter Road and Leith Walk, lie in a 'joint plan for building' which three principal feuars (Heriot's Hospital, Trinity Hospital and Mr Allan of Hillside) entered into in 1811. In 1812 a competition was advertised for plans for laying out the grounds in question. Thirty-two plans were received, displayed and reported on by a variety of people, including eight architects. Eventually, it was decided that none of the plans was suitable. However, it was a more general report by William Stark (who died shortly after submitting it) which caught the attention of the Commissioners and formed the basis of the final scheme. Stark's central argument stressed the importance of planning around the natural contours and features of the land rather than imposing formal, symmetrical street plans upon it. After several years of little or no progress, in 1818 the Commissioners finally selected William Henry Playfair, Stark's former pupil, to plan a scheme following his master's Picturesque ideals.

The resulting scheme, presented to the Commissioners in 1819, preserved the view of and from Calton Hill by the creation of a limited triangular development of three single-sided terraces on the hill itself. These looked over a huge radial street pattern, centred on the gardens of Hillside Crescent, on the land to the north. The feuing of these lower lands started well, with Elm Row, Leopold Place, Windsor Street and the west side of Hillside Crescent being built fairly swiftly. However, demand for the feus faltered severely, due to the growing popularity of new properties being built to the west of the New Town. This had a particularly bad effect on Royal Terrace, where construction stopped for 20 years, leaving 2 large gaps in the Terrace and a further 3 unbuilt feus to the west end. The fate of the whole Calton scheme was sealed in 1838, when it was decided that feuars should pay poor-rates to both Edinburgh and Leith. This virtually halted development for the next thirty years. The result of all these problems was that very little of Playfair's original scheme was ever built. When building resumed in the 1880s, some of Playfair's original street lines were adhered to, as was the case with Hillside Crescent, and in others such as Brunton Place, Brunswick Street, Hillside Street (originally to be a longer street called Hopeton Street), and Wellington Street (also curtailed). However, due to piecemeal residential, industrial and transport developments immediately to the north, it would have been impossible to further follow Playfair's original layout, even if this had been considered desirable.

References

Bibliography

Wood's Map, 1823. OS Map, 1853, 1877, 1896. MINUTES OF MEETINGS OF THE COMMITTEE FOR FEUING THE GROUNDS OF CALTON HILL 1811-1822, Edinburgh City Council Archives. W H Playfair, DRAWINGS, Edinburgh University Library, 1790-1857. Edinburgh City Archives, Dean of Guild: 9th April 1960 (installation of fire escape). A J Youngson, THE MAKING OF CLASSICAL EDINBURGH, (1966) pp148-156. I Lindsay, GEORGIAN EDINBURGH, (1973) pp54-55. A. Mitchell, THE PEOPLE OF CALTON HILL, (1993). Gifford, McWilliam and Walker, EDINBURGH, (1994), p444-446. H Colvin, DICTIONARY OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS, (1995), p766. J Lowrey, THE URBAN DESIGN OF EDINBURGH'S CALTON HILL in THE NEW TOWN PHENOMENON ' ST ANDREWS STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCOTTISH DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, (2000), pp1-12.

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Printed: 28/03/2024 16:41