Description

1789; earlier 19th century shopfronts. 3-storey on raised basement and attic classical tenement on corner site, with shops at ground. Droved cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. Long and short rusticated quoins; eaves cornice. Painted timber shopfronts (as ashlar) with full entablature.

QUEEN STREET ELEVATION: 5-bay. Pair of 3- and 2-bay shops at pavement/raised basement level; inset entrances framed by quadrant columns, with 2-leaf panelled storm doors; that at 39a with panelled and glazed inner door with bevelled glass. Pair of large piend-roofed canted dormers.

FREDERICK STREET ELEVATION: broad irregular 4-bay gable with single bay to S. Shop on corner at basement to right. Steps to 2 doors to 2 left bays of gable; that to right (No 66) larger, to ground floor flat with splayed reveals, pilasters, fluted frieze with rosettes and cornice; 9-panelled door with plate glass fanlight; that to left (No 64) to common stair, architraved and corniced; pair of full-sized windows to gablehead. Bay to left with canted oriel window at ground with cornice and blocking course; bipartite slate-hung box dormer.

Timber sash and case 12-pane windows (plate glass to Queen Street at ground, and oriel). Aslar coped skews; stone stacks; grey slates.

INTERIOR: shops plain or modernised. Ground floor flat (No 66) with internal steps making up level to hallway with fluted pilastered arch; 2 rooms to Queen Street - 2-bay to W with sideboard recess facing window, framed by fluted pilasters and festooned frieze, with plaster panelled walls, panelled dado and simple carved chimneypiece - 3-bay to E with further window on E wall next to neo-Greek chimneypiece, panelled dado; room with oriel window with fine carved chimnepiece with panelled pilasters bearing urns and central foliate panel; further small room with festooned chimneypiece.

RAILINGS: cast-iron railings.

Statement of Interest

Built by Robert Wright and James Tait. A significant surviving part of the original fabric of Edinburgh?s New Town, one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain; Queen Street was built to take advantage of the northern views, and has survived remarkably unaltered to this day.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living