Royal Terrace House, Royal Terrace Gardens, London Road, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Description

William H Playfair, 1836. Near-symmetrical, classical, L-plan, single storey 3-bay cottage. Snecked stugged squared sandstone with droved margins. Base course. Predominantly regular fenestration.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3-bay elevation; advanced central bay with timber pediment. To centre, 2-leaf timber-panelled door; windows to left and right bays; all openings with raised, battered, lugged architraves with corbelled cills (windows only) and pedimented lintels.

E (SIDE) ELEVATION: window to left.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: to right, advanced section (see Notes) with timber door and window to W elevation. To left, 2 timber boarded doors and window.

W (SIDE) ELEVATION: to right, window with raised, battered, lugged architrave with corbelled cill and pedimented lintel.

GLAZING etc: predominantly 10-lying-pane timber sash and case windows. Very shallow pitched piended roof with broad bracketed eaves; purple-grey slate. To centre of ridge, paired corniced ashlar stacks, one with circular can, one with octagonal can.

Statement of Interest

Part of the Calton A-Group.

Listed as a good, distinctive, example of Playfair's smaller scale designs, for its aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of London Road and for its historical relationship to the development of Playfair's Eastern New Town 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 development of three prestigious single sided terraces (Royal, Regent and Carlton) 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.

Royal Terrace Gardens, between Royal and Carlton Terraces and London Road, were laid out in 1831, by the Heriot's Hospital Trust who owned the land. The gardens are thought to have been planned with input from Playfair and are said to have included a footpath suggested by Charles X of France, who was then in exile and living at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Trust also allotted part of the garden to nursery purposes, and in 1836, commissioned Playfair to design Royal Terrace Gardens House, a cottage providing accommodation for a resident gardener of the Royal Terrace gardens. In addition to the cottage, there were also two garden buildings directly to the NE, both of which were built by 1852 and which were likely to contemporary with the cottage. One of these was a rectangular glasshouse with a canted west elevation which was demolished between 1896 and 1909. The other building was demolished during the mid 20th century.

The first tenant of the cottage, John Niven, was negligent in his work, failing to lock the gates at night and grazing his horse in the gardens. The next incumbent, James Turner, stayed there from 1841 to 1859, when he was succeeded by George Wood, who stayed in the cottage until 1871 when he was asked to leave after allowing families from nearby streets to use part of the gardens as a bleaching green.

In the 1890's, the city council asked the trust to replace / re-instate railings along the whole length of the gardens. Soon afterwards the council took on a 25-year lease of the gardens, at a cost of £25 per annum, on the conditions that a grounds-keeper should continue to live in the cottage, that the grounds be used solely as pleasure gardens and that only residents of Royal and Carlton Terraces should be key holders.

The railings that surrounded the gardens were removed to be melted down and reused during the Second World War.

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