20 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Description

William H Playfair, designed 1824-1826; Nos 4-14 Montgomery Street built circa 1826; Nos 16-26 Montgomery Street built circa 1864; Nos 28-32 Montgomery Street and Nos 28-30 Windsor Street, built circa 1881. Polished ashlar; droved to basement; predominantly squared coursed rubble with dressed margins to rear. 3-storey basement and attic, long range to Montgomery Street with quadrant corner to shorter range to Windsor Street. Base course; dividing band between basement and ground floors; cill course to 1st and 2nd floors; band course and main cornice dividing 2nd and attic floors; eaves cornice and blocking course. Regular fenestration; to ground floor, sunken aprons (panelled to Windsor Street and corner elevation); architraves to ground, 1st, 2nd and attic floors to Windsor Street and corner elevations.

N (MONTGOMERY STREET) ELEVATION: 29-bay (30 bays to ground floor) elevation. To basement, to 3rd, 5th and 7th bays from right, steps leading down to 2-leaf timber and glazed doors; areas beneath platts blocked in by combinations of glazing and walls. To ground floor: to 4th, 6th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 23rd, 25th, 27th and 29th bays from left, steps and platts (predominantly supported by cast-iron beams except for 23rd, 25th, 27th and 29th from left) overarching basement, leading to timber-panelled doors (2-leaf to 23rd and 25th bays) with rectangular fanlights (2-pane to 11th, 12th, 13th and 19th bays; multi-pane to 27th bay; replaced by louvre to 29th bay); to 20th, 21st and 22nd bays, basket-arched opening to pend.

NE (CORNER) ELEVATION: 2-bay, very slightly recessed quadrant elevation.

E (WINDSOR STREET) ELEVATION: 7-bay elevation. To ground floor, to 3rd and 6th bays from left, steps and platts overarching basement, leading to timber-panelled doors with rectangular fanlights.

GLAZING etc: to Windsor Street elevation, corner elevation, 1st '22nd bays from left to Montgomery Street elevation and rear elevation above and to right of pend, predominantly 4-pane glazing; to 23rd-29th/ 30th bays from left to Montgomery Street and to rear to left of pend, predominantly 12-pane glazing; glazing predominantly in timber sash and case windows. M-pitched roof; grey slate; stone skews and skewputts. To Montgomery Street elevation, 10 corniced ashlar ridge stacks (2 to far right preceded by individual octagonal flues); to Windsor Street elevation, 2 ashlar ridge stacks preceded by individual octagonal flues; to S gable, 2 corniced gablehead stacks; predominantly circular cans to all stacks.

RAILINGS: edging basement recess and platts, cast-iron railings with spear-head finials, spear-headed dog bars; hexagonal patterned top border to railings to 4-14 Montgomery Street; circular patterned border to railings to 16-20 Montgomery Street.

Statement of Interest

Part of the Calton A-Group.

The block comprising 4-32 Montgomery Street and 28-30 Windsor Street form part of Playfair's Eastern New Town (or Calton) scheme. 4-14 Montgomery Street was built to the designs of Playfair and as such are an important example of the work of one of Scotland's leading early 19th century architects. Playfair was one of the major driving forces of the Greek Revival in Edinburgh at this time, and his public commissions such as the National Monument, the Royal Institution and the National Gallery (see separate listings) gave strength to Edinburgh's reputation as the Athens of the North. The Calton Scheme was one of his few domestic commissions, and the variety of designs, different for each street, demonstrates Playfair's expertise with the Grecian style and his characteristic punctilious attention to detail. The remainder of the Montgomery Street range and the corner and Windsor Street elevations were built in 2 stages, to slightly simplified versions of Playfair's designs; the final stage of building (28-32 Montgomery Street and 28-30 Windsor Street) may have been designed by John Chesser who was involved, during the 1880s, with the completion of several of the streets which Playfair planned. This means that the whole of the block comprising 4-32 Montgomery Street and 28-30 Windsor Street is important due to its continuation of the street plan and Grecian style which are characteristic of Playfair's original scheme. The railings with circular and hexagonal borders are important as their design features distinctive elements which Playfair repeated in large areas of the Calton scheme.

The origins of the Eastern New Town, which was to occupy the east end of Calton Hill and lands to the north of it on the ground between Easter Road and Leith Walk, lie in a 'joint plan for building' which three principal feuars (Heriot's Hospital, Trinity Hospital and Mr Allan of Hillside) entered into in 1811. In 1812 a competition was advertised for plans for laying out the grounds in question. Thirty-two plans were received, displayed and reported on by a variety of people, including eight architects. Eventually, it was decided that none of the plans was suitable. However, it was a more general report by William Stark (who died shortly after submitting it) which caught the attention of the Commissioners and formed the basis of the final scheme. Stark's central argument stressed the importance of planning around the natural contours and features of the land rather than imposing formal, symmetrical street plans upon it. After several years of little or no progress, in 1818 the Commissioners finally selected William Henry Playfair, Stark's former pupil, to plan a scheme following his master's Picturesque ideals.

The resulting scheme, presented to the Commissioners in 1819, preserved the view of and from Calton Hill by the creation of a limited, triangular development of three single-sided terraces on the hill itself. These looked over a huge radial street pattern, centred on the gardens of Hillside Crescent, on the land to the north. The feuing of these lower lands started well, with Elm Row, Leopold Place, Windsor Street and the west side of Hillside Crescent being built fairly swiftly. However, demand for the feus faltered severely, due to the growing popularity of new properties being built to the west of the New Town. The fate of the Calton scheme was sealed in 1838, when it was decided that feuars should pay poor-rates to both Edinburgh and Leith. This virtually halted development for the next thirty years. The result of all these problems was that very little of Playfair's original scheme was ever built. When building resumed in the late 1880s, some of Playfair's original street lines were adhered to, as was the case with the western corner of Montgomery Street and Windsor Street and in others such as Hillside Crescent, Brunton Place, Brunswick Street, Hillside Street (originally to be a longer street called Hopeton Street), and Wellington Street (also curtailed). However, due to piecemeal residential, industrial and transport developments immediately to the north, it would have been impossible to further follow Playfair's original layout, even if this had been considered desirable.

External Links

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