Description

Mid 19th century. 2-storey symmetrical 6-bay rectangular-plan classical villa. Polished sandstone ashlar, channelled at ground; rubble to sides and rear. Base course; dividing band course; cornice and blocking course; architraved windows to 1st floor.

NE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: 2 central bays advanced; paired doorcase supported by fluted Doric columns with pilasters behind outer columns; 6-panel timber door to No 34, 4-panel door (2 of them glass) to No 36; plate glass fanlights above; 2 single windows to 1st floor above and

to both floors of other bays. Corniced wings with pedestrian entrances adjoin to NW and SE.

INTERIOR: not seen 1996.

BOUNDARY WALLS: low coped boundary walls to street and at sides. Grey slate piended roof with mutual and wallhead stacks, the latter coped, the former corniced. 4-pane timber sash and case windows.

Statement of Interest

Dr Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, an eminent Edinburgh surgeon and farmer, speculated on the potential for development in the lands of Newington. In 1806, aware of the demand for countrified dwellings near the city, he advertised his intention to sell 58 plots of land within his

8.5 acres. On his death in the same year his son George Bell, also a surgeon, inherited the land and, in 1825, commissioned James Gillespie Graham to design a plan for new streets within the grounds of Newington House, bounded by the back garden walls of Minto Street, Salisbury Road, East Mayfield and Dalkeith Road. Feus were offered for sale and Blacket Place began to take shape, the houses possibly being built speculatively by one builder or building company. Security was an important feature of the development, with Gothic gates, the octagonal piers of which survive, locked at night and single storey lodges at the entrances from Minto Street and Dalkeith Road.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17793352

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

• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)