History in Structure

Boundary Walls And Gate Piers, Rockville, 3 Napier Road, Edinburgh

A Category B Listed Building in Morningside, Edinburgh

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Coordinates

Latitude: 55.9332 / 55°55'59"N

Longitude: -3.217 / 3°13'1"W

OS Eastings: 324068

OS Northings: 671798

OS Grid: NT240717

Mapcode National: GBR 8HN.WL

Mapcode Global: WH6SS.K4BB

Plus Code: 9C7RWQMM+76

Entry Name: Boundary Walls And Gate Piers, Rockville, 3 Napier Road, Edinburgh

Listing Name: Napier Road and Spylaw Road, Walls and Gatepiers of Former Rockville House (1-18 the Limes)

Listing Date: 1 August 2003

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 396853

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB49358

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200396853

Location: Edinburgh

County: Edinburgh

Town: Edinburgh

Electoral Ward: Morningside

Traditional County: Midlothian

Tagged with: Architectural structure

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Description

Sir James Gowans, 1858. Walls and gatepiers of the former Rockville House, demolished 1966. Pyramidally-capped circular?plan gatepiers in rubble banded with ashlar. Rubble walls with bull-faced ashlar copes, alternately stepped.

Statement of Interest

The walls and gatepiers are all that remain of Rockville, the house which Gowans designed for himself in his own idiosyncratic style. There were previously railings with Gowans' initials. The house had steep mansard roofs with deep bracketed eaves and decorative brattishing, and a 5-stage domed tower 64 feet tall due to which it came to be known affectionately as 'the pagoda'; it was constructed of rubble with a grid system of banded ashlar.

Gowans' buildings were based on his theory of standardised construction, with fixed angles and a stock module of 2 feet, to facilitate mass production. He ran a quarrying business, and was deeply. interested in the practical and aesthetic qualities of stone. Rockville could be seen as the ultimate expression of Gowans' fusion of Rationalism and Romanticism. 'Lammerburn', a smaller and less ambitious house on the other side of Napier Road, survives and gives some idea of how Rockville must have been.

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