Description

Robert Morham, city architect, 1884. Scottish Baronial 4-storey police station with residential accommodation, square-plan (4 x 4-bay) with chamfered corner and with 2-storey blocks projecting at rear, 1 raised from single storey soon after completion. Craigleith sandstone, squared and snecked with ashlar dressings; base course; string courses above ground and below 3rd floor; jettied 3rd floor, stepped at intervals; chamfered revelas.

N ELEVATION: wide gabled bay to left with round-arched doorway in deeply chamfered surround with moulded arch and bold cable hoodmould and label stops; 2-leaf door. Narrow window at 1st floor; City of Edinburgh armorial in square panel cradled in jettied gablehead; broad set-off stack breaking skew of gablehead to right, and corner turret intercepting to left; blind arrowslit at apex. 3 windows spanning centre bays at ground with window to each floor in bays above, bipartite to 3rd floor left of centre, breaking eaves in gabled dormerhead to right of centre. Gabled stair bay to outer right with door at ground flanked by window, bipartite above, and single windows to 2nd and 3rd landing.

2-storey blocks on W return. Nepus gable to 4-storey wallhead with round-arched panel and square stair window at eaves line, formerly open with railings. Square windows to taller bay to right.

E ELEVATION: 4-bay with chamfered corner. Centre bays gabled; door at ground in bay left of centre with deep fanlight; high window to right; window to each bay in floors above, those at 2nd floor over-stepped by jetting; shield panel at apex. Bipartites to outer left bay at ground, 1st and 2nd floor, single window in gabled dormerhead at 3rd.

Chamfered corner bay comprised of wider window at ground, window at 1st floor, canted windows to 2nd and 3rd floor in turret form, breaking eaves in polygonal gurret roof with decorative wrought-iron finial, and intercepting gablehead on N elevation.

2-STOREY BLOCKS: 2 gabled projections running E-W from W elevation; door and windows to ground at N, 1st floor jettied with arrowslits. N block originally single storey with drying green above.

INGERIOR: not seen (1990). The plans indicate cells were included at ground floor, with kitchens, bedrooms and bed closets at 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors.

Ball finials to gabled dormerheads. 8-pane glazing pattern predominating in sash and case windows (some currently blocked, 1990). Grey-green slates, fish-scale to polygonal roof. Wallhead stacks with moulded coping. Crowstepped gables with beak skewputts.

Statement of Interest

The Dean of Guild records indicate that various "gable-fronted houses" at Jew's Close were demolished in order to build the police station at what was then known as Braid Place.

The fire station in Sciennes House Place was designed contemporanously, also by Robert Morham, in similar Baronial style and materials. The Jewish Burial Ground neighbouring to W, in Sciennes House Place is listed separately.

Formerly listed as 10 Sciennes House Place, Former Causewayside Police Station. Statutory address changed to 86-92 (Even Nos) Causewayside and 10 Sciennes House Place, Former Causewayside Police Station in September 2011.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17803395

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

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
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  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)