Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey 2-bay gabled tenement with original shop-front to ground floor. Squared and snecked lightly stugged sandstone with polished dressings (painted to ground). Continuous cornice to ground floor; moulded string course (linking to neighbouring elevations) stepping up over 2nd floor window and date plaque (1860). Stop-chamfered roll-moulded openings to ground floor; stop-chamfered surrounds to windows. Crowstepped gable with thistle finial and small wallhead stack adjoining to right with carved monogram (PK). 2-leaf timber-panelled door and glazed inner door to shop.

Plate glass to ground floor; 2-pane upper, 4-pane lower glazing in timber sash and case windows. Grey slates. Corniced stacks with circular cans.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. Known briefly as Lord Cockburn Street, Cockburn Street was named after the doyen of conservationists, Lord Cockburn, who died in 1854. It 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 (anticpated 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.' Peddie and Kinnear's Cockburn Street designs are an innovative application (much imitated later) of the Scots Baronial style, previously used by Burn and Bryce in country houses, to the urban situation, with shops and tenements enlivened by crowstepped gables, corbelling and turrets, linked by moulded string courses.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17801846

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

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  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
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  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
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  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)