Description

Stewart Henbest Capper, 1893. Asymmetrical 4-storey, attic and basement 4-bay tenement with Arts and Crafts/Scottish vernacular detailing. Harled brown with red sandstone dressings. Swept roofs; crowstepped gables.

E ELEVATION: engaged octagonal stair tower to right with moulded string courses at 1st and 5th stages, moulded eaves course and finialled red-tiled pyramidal roof; red sandstone to ground floor, harled above: small-pane glazed 2-leaf timber door in depressed-arched roll-moulded surround, flanked by small windows in roll-moulded ogee-arched surrounds; carved cherubs (farmer, blacksmith and mason) over door and windows; corniced red sandstone surrounds to top stage windows, open segmental pediment with thistle to centre. Stone steps and platts with cast-iron handrail over-arching basement area to left; 2-leaf timber panelled door with small-pane glazed fanlight, flanked by transomed window to left, both in roll-moulded depressed-arched surrounds; hoodmoulded tripartite window above. Slightly advanced bay to centre: consoled decorative swept-roofed timber oriel with leaded glass; corbelled out 2-storey gable above, bracketed to left, with apex stack.

W ELEVATION: 3-storey oriel to right, jettied out with swept, bracketed roof at 4th floor. Tripartite window to left at 4th floor with bracketed balcony and decorative wrought-iron balustrade. Jettied projection at 4th floor with small window and swept roof to outer left. 2 piend-roofed dormers to attic.

Small-pane glazing in sash and case and casement windows. Crowstepped skews. Red tiles to roof. Corniced stacks with circular cans.

Statement of Interest

The A group comprises Nos 1-3, Nos 4-10, Nos 11 and 12 and Nos 13-16 Ramsay Garden. The ground on which Ramsay Garden stands was acquired by the poet Allan Ramsay in 1733. On it he built an octagonal villa, Ramsay Lodge, completed circa 1734. The property was purchased by Professor Patrick Geddes from Lord Murray of Henderland, a descendant of Ramsay, in 1890. The complex which Geddes built, incorporating Ramsay Lodge and a plain 18th century tenement to the E, and designed by S Henbest Capper and Sydney Mitchll and Wilson, was an extension of his University Hall, begun in 1883 at 2 Mound Place. As the article in the BUILDER suggests, Geddes' intention was to 'combine the advantages of collegiate life with the more practical needs and shorter purses of Scottish undergraduates.' Nos 11 and 12 were built for Francis Ogilvie, Principal of Heriot Watt College, as one house with studios to be rented out (separate kitchen etc) at 4th and 5th floors. The Ramsay Garden complex is important both architecturally and historically, and also has immense townscape importance -particularly the sky-line as viewed from Princes Street.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17576804

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.

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