Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey and attic Scots Baronial corner block built as the Cockburn Hotel (now offices), 4 bays to Market Street, 1 to Cockburn Street, with circular entrance tower to angle of Market Street and Cockburn Street, corbelled to rectangular cap-house at attic. Squared and snecked lightly stugged sandstone with polished dressings. Moulded string course to ground floor, stepping up over entrance and carved panel with profile bust of Lord Cockburn. Crowstepped gables with apex stacks; scrolled detail to skews. Windows in stop-chamfered, roll-moulded surrounds. Door with border-glazed fanlight in roll-moulded surround to base of tower; finialled dormers to NE and SW; engaged 2-storey ogee-roofed circular tourelle corbelled out in re-entrant angle to NE.

SW (COCKBURN STREET) ELEVATION: quadripartite bowed window in re-entrant angle with cast-iron brattishing to parapet; moulded string course stepping up to curve over attic window in gable; monogram (PK) in gable.

MARKET STREET ELEVATION: 3 regularly fenestrated bays to right (stone-mullioned bipartite windows); bracketed balcony with decorative cast-iron railings and rectangular-plan 2-light oriel with decorative brattishing to 1st floor; carved sign (THE COCKBURN HOTEL) below corbel table to attic with 3 finialled gabled dormerheaded windows breaking eaves and 2 corniced, shouldered wallhead stacks. Projecting gabled bay to left with rounded corners, corbelled to square at attic level; bipartite window to basement, tripartite window to ground, 2-storey canted oriel corbelled out to 1st and 2nd floors; small stone-mullioned bipartite window in gable.

RAILINGS: decorative cast-iron railings to basement area to Market Street.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Corniced wallhead and gablehead stacks with circular cans.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. 1-3 Cockburn Street was originally Philp's Cockburn Hotel. The Market Street elevation to the hotel was designed to resemble a Bryce Baronial country house, in a location convenient for the station, and in an area where there was 'a great want of hotels.' Known briefly as Lord Cockburn Street, Cockburn Street was named after the doyen of conservationists, Lord Cockburn, who died in 1854. Cockburn Street was built by the High Street and Railway Station Access Company, under the Railway Station Acts of 1853 and 1860, to provide access to Waverley Station from the High Street. The serpentine curve of the street (anticipated in Thomas Hamilton's Victoria Street) gives a gradient of not more than 1:14; James Peddie and Henry J Wylie were the engineers. One of the aims of the design was to conceal the diagonal line of the street from Princes Street. A watercolour perspective drawing of the street by John Laing, published in THE BUILDER of 1860, shows how this was to be achieved. Stylistically, the intention was 'to preserve as far as possible the architectural style and antique character of the locality.'

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17801566

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

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide