Description

Robert Paterson, 1877. Two-storey with central tower, three-bay Franco-Baronial L-plan municipal building with later additions and (internal) alterations. Bull-faced squared and snecked sandstone, polished dressings, brick to northeast elevation. Base course, chamfered arrises, moulded cill course to first floor.

SOUTHWEST (HIGH STREET) ELEVATION: near-symmetrical, advanced bay to centre, buttressed at ground floor, broad entrance with flanking columns, moulded four-centred arch doorpiece. Corbelled and mullioned oriel window at first floor above, with cast-iron brattishing. Corbelled string course above first floor. Corbelled diminutive bartizans at eaves level of tower. Clock set within crow-stepped gable (also to northwest and southeast elevations of tower). Gabled and louvered dormers to tower and intricate cast-iron cage and weather vane at apex. Tripartite window to ground of flanking bays, hoodmoulds with semi-circular central section, tripartite windows at first floor above. Finely carved lintel, corbelled to crow-stepped gable with trefoil relief in gablehead. Foundation stone to southeast angle, carved: " Erected 1878 Thomas Wood Esq. Provost”. Corbelled bartizan above at eaves.

Timber cases to stone mullioned windows. Grey slate roof of complex pattern, M-gable with various other additions to rear. Rendered and coped stack to northwest, ashlar and coped polygonal wallhead stack to southeast.

INTERIOR: panelled ceiling and walls to first floor, centre. Superintendent's room with panelled door, plaster cornice and panelled ingoes to window recess. The building has false ceilings, original features may survive concealed behind.

Statement of Interest

Designed as the Town Council Office. It provided accommodation for the Town Council, including rooms for the Treasurer, Town Clerk and Registrar to the ground floor with police cells and offices and fire engine room to the rear. The interior was designed with spacious and handsome civic rooms, including a Town Council Room and a Court Room (Baird, p.414). The extent of survival of these municipal rooms is unknown (2025). The building is a flamboyant display of civic pride in a prominent High Street location.

Supplementary information in the listed building record updated in 2025.

External Links

• Police Station, 118 Portobello High Street, Portobello, Edinburgh at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17811153

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.

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