Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61, enlarged to rear (by Peddie and Kinnear) 1867. 4-storey and attic symmetrical 4-bay gothic and Baronial former newspaper offices with narrow frontage and deep plan; twin crowstepped gables, each with paired bays contained in gothic-arched recesses framed by angle pilasters and nookshafts. Ashlar to ground, squared and snecked lightly stugged sandstone with polished dressings above. String and cill courses at 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors (carried round to Anchor Close elevation). Openings in roll-moulded, stop-chamfered surrounds. Mirrored shopfronts with stone-mullioned windows in segmental-arched recesses; original timber panelled door to left with plate glass fanlight. Trefoil-pierced balcony to 1st floor. Carved SCOTSMAN masthead below 2nd floor windows. Segmental-arched windows to 2nd floor with carved thistles, shamrocks and roses; shoulder-arched windows to 3rd floor; basket-arched windows to attic; decorative iron window guards to 1st, 2nd, 3rd and attic floors. Chimneybreast corbelled out to centre at 2nd floor, with heraldic shield (lion rampant with motto IN DEFENCE over) below stack.

4-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Corniced end stacks with circular cans and gabletted wallhead stack between gables.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. The first purpose-built offices and printing works for the 'Scotsman' newspaper, built for John Ritchie and Company. At ground floor were the advertisement and publishing offices; at 1st floor the manager's room and counting room; editorial offices were at 2nd, equipped with speaking tubes, bells and copy chute to composing room to rear. There was also a typographical department employing 100 men, stereotype foundry and library. In the 2 machine rooms were 3 Walter presses which printed and folded 36,000 copies of 'a large 8-page sheet' an hour. On the E side of Anchor Close was the ink and paper store. 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 Q17801923

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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  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (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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  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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