General Register House, Princes Street, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Entry Name: General Register House, Princes Street, Edinburgh

Listing Name: Princes Street, General Register House with Area Walls and Steps to Front

Listing Date: 14 December 1970

Category: A

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 364901

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB27636

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200364901

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: City Centre

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Architectural structure

Description

Robert Adam, 1774-88; Robert Reid, 1822-34. 2-storey on raised basement neo-classical quadrangular record office with domed circular reading room in centre of court. Polished cream sandstone ashlar (cleaned abrasively in 1969). Projecting taller single bay pavilions at corners and centre of side elevations, with balustraded parapet; those at corners with cupola on square base with free-standing columns at angles, bearing respectively clock and wind vane (blind to rear pavilions). Ground floor and pavilions arcaded with windows set in arches; base course and impost course. Cill course at 1st floor, cornice and blocking course.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 13-bay. Rusticated at ground with attached tetrastyle Corinthian centrepiece with pediment bearing roundel of Royal Arms in Liardet?s patent stucco; advanced pavilions with pair of Corinthian columns at 1st floor framing Venetian windows set in recessed arches. 1st floor windows with architraves and cornices; centrepiece with consoled cornices and balustrades, festooned Liardet?s stucco panels above; flagpoles to centre window and roof. Imperial stair with flanking walls (see Notes).

SIDE ELEVATIONS: 9-bay; plain windows.

REAR ELEVATION: 13-bay. 5-bay centrepiece arcaded at ground with alternating pedimented and corniced 1st floor windows; 3-bay links to corner pavilions as above. At centre ground single storey link to Back Dome (see separate listing).

Timber sash and case 12-pane windows. Piended roofs; grey slates; leaded dome.

INTERIOR: of vaulted fireproof construction. Groin-vaulted entrance Hall restored and adapted by Simpson and Brown, 1993, with massive new chimneypiece. Reid?s metal gates to Rotunda rising full-height to oculus of dome; neo-classical plasterwork of dome executed by Thomas Clayton to Adam?s design of 1785 (repainted 1973-4). E and W staircases with arched screens at ground (both now house lift shafts). Lord Clerk Register?s Room at centre of S front (behind portico) with enriched frieze and grey marble chimneypiece. Reid?s interiors start with double cantilevered stair in shallow but tall curved space beyond Rotunda, leading to Historical Search Room (originally Antiquarian Room) lined with 2 storeys of bookcases and timber gallery; heavily moulded Grecian ceiling of compartmentalised rosettes.

Statement of Interest

Part of an 'A' Group with Nos 6-20 Waterloo Place, Nos 1-29 Waterloo Place, Waverleygate, Regent Bridge, Balmoral Hotel and 5-43 Leith Street.

Crown property. The first purpose built record office in Britain, and still in use as such. The site was given by the City in 1769 to encourage the development of the New Town they were planning. Adam had prepared his design by 1771, which drew both on plans made up by Robert Baldwin in 1762 and Adam's own unexecuted plans for Syon. Foundation stone for the S section laid on 27th June 1774, the N side having been postponed, but even this work took ten years to complete. Clock and wind vane by Vulliamy installed in 1790, interior of dome painted 1791. N range completed by Robert Reid, 1822-34. Bryce pushed back the front area wall in 1849, in order to accommodate the statue of Wellington (see separate listing), and W W Robertson continued this process, squaring off the staircase in 1890-1. Stonecleaned during restoration in 1969, at which time the rosettes in the frieze were replaced, having originally also been made of Liardet's stucco, like the panels in the centrepiece. Linked to the Sasine Office at 1st floor in 1994. The Back Dome was connected to the rear of Register House in 1871 (see separate listing). New Register House of 1858, and the Sasine Office complete the group (see separate listings). The full length statue of George III is by Anne Seymour Damer, and was originally in the office of her uncle the Lord Clerk Register, Frederick Campbell.

External Links

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