Description

R Lawson Scott (Royal Engineers Department, London), 1886-8, with later niches, Sir Robert Lorimer, 1929. Crenellated Baronial entrance gateway with round-arched pend accessed from Esplanade across modern drawbridge over dry ditch; T-plan gabled gatehouse with flat-roofed wings beyond. Squared and snecked rock-faced yellow sandstone with polished dressings.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: crenellated parapet, chequer-set machicolations. Taller section to centre with roll-moulded round-arched entrance; tripartite panel over entrance with motto and heraldic crest; cannon spouts and bartizans above. Flanking canopied gothic niches designed by Robert Lorimer, housing bronze statues (see Notes). 17th century carved panels (see Notes) incorporated in walls of pend.

W ELEVATION: taller crowstepped gabled section to centre with oriel window over round-arched entrance RVI and date, 1888.

Leaded glass and small-pane glazing to gatehouse. Crowstepped skews. Grey slates. Pyramidally coped ashlar stacks with circular cans. Cast-iron downpipes with decrative hoppers (thistles and roses).

Statement of Interest

The A Group comprises Batteries, Foog's Gate, Gatehouse, Governor's House, Great Hall, Lang Stairs, Military Prison, National War Museum, New Barracks, Old Guardhouse, Palace Block, Portcullis Gate, St Margaret's Chapel, Scottish National War Memorial, Telephone Kiosks, United Services Museum and Vaults, all within Edinburgh Castle, and in the Care of Historic Scotland. Until the 1880's the Castle had a simple palisaded main entry, with an unspectacular jumble of buildings beyond. The gatehouse building housed guardroom, detention cells and court marshal room. The 2 carved panels now in the entrance passage illustrate armaments, including the cannon known as Mons Meg. Wilson illustrates the carved panel showing Mons Meg captioned 'Ancient carved stone over the entrance to the Ordnance Office.' The other, illustrated in Grant 'stood over the barrier gateway of Edinburgh Castle.' The statues of William Wallace (by Alexander Carrick) and King Robert I (by Thomas Clapperton) were erected in 1929, in Lorimer's niches, to commemorate the 600th anniversary of King Robert's death.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17569927

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)