Inverleith

House at 13 Lime Tree Road, Inverleith

This Grade II* listed house was built in 1908-9 by the architect Percy Morley Horder and his partner A.G. Wyand. It is constructed in red brick, rendered and whitewashed to the entrance and courtyard fronts and to the ground floor of the garden front, with tile hanging to the upper parts of the garden fronts. The roof is of plain tiles with various brick stacks featuring cornices. The house is arranged in a U plan forming a three-sided courtyard and is designed in the vernacular revival style with leaded-light casements throughout.

The building is two storeys high. The symmetrical entrance front features gables, various casements, and a central carriage arch under a pentice roof. This arch leads through to the front door on the left, the staircase window ahead, with the open side to the right and, in the service wing behind, two sets of garage doors. The front door is recessed within a tile-hung gable. The staircase gable is rendered with a catslide roof; the end of this wing is tile hung with various casements. The garage and entrance arch wing is also rendered. The entrance courtyard presents a carefully considered and unaltered composition of gables, catslide roofs, render, and tile hanging, with a second matching set of garage doors as the only careful later insertion. The similarly unaltered garden fronts are designed with equal care, emphasising long horizontal lines with wide low casements. These include a square bay to the south-east front and an open veranda and square bay combined under a catslide and pentice roof on the south-east front.

The interior is finely detailed and very little altered, combining many 18th-century fittings with architect-designed elements in the 18th-century and Arts and Crafts styles. The entrance hall features many 18th-century six-panel doors leading to the staircase, which has a balustrade in Chinese Chippendale style. A corner fireplace with carved decoration is also present. The study, formerly the dining room, retains complete 18th-century raised and fielded panelling, fine mahogany doors, and a richly carved fireplace. The drawing room and billiard room also feature carved fireplaces and carved and moulded wall decoration, with double doors opening to provide an interconnecting reception space with the entrance hall. The service areas have undergone some alteration, though the butler's pantry survives complete with cupboards and sink. The bedrooms all have fireplaces, either 18th-century (possibly reworked), in Arts and Crafts style, or in cast-iron in the former service rooms. A bathroom retains probably contemporary tiling incorporating a number of possibly much earlier Delft-style tiles. The back stairs feature a simple Arts and Crafts style balustrade.

The house remains virtually unaltered since its publication in Small Country Houses of Today, a classic work of 1911 edited by Lawrence Weaver. The original patron was the Company Secretary of the Norwich Union Insurance Company at a time when the firm demolished its 18th-century premises and built a flamboyant Edwardian Baroque building in 1903-4. The unusual interior combines comparatively low rooms with genuine 18th-century fittings and others in the Arts and Crafts style. The study contains complete 18th-century panelling with fine 18th-century mahogany doors. Elsewhere there are carved wall enrichments, several 18th-century carved fireplaces or fireplaces re-using 18th-century carved mouldings, and many 18th-century six-panel doors. Morley Horder combined these with fittings of his own design to create an interior of great character, with the staircase balustrade in Chinese Chippendale style and other fittings in the Georgian and Arts and Crafts styles. The house is a very distinguished example of its period.