74 Hamilton Place With Gate Piers And Boundary Walls, Aberdeen

This is a pair of semi-detached villas, built in 1887 to the designs of Pirie and Clyne, with John Morgan acting as builder. They are located at 74 Hamilton Place, Aberdeen, and display distinctive Egypto-Greek architectural detailing. The villas are two storeys and have an attic level, presenting a symmetrical facade.

The principal, southeast elevation is composed of two mirrored, semi-detached villas, each with four bays. The ground floor features broad doorways in the centre bays, flanked by squat, rough-faced pilasters and deep-set doors with glazed panels. Single windows are positioned above these doors on the first floor, with reveals that curve inwards towards the base. Bowed windows, also in grey granite, extend through the ground and first floors on each side. These windows form a balcony to the attic floor, featuring pilastered mullions with a sunken fillet at the capital of the first floor. The facade is embellished with pink granite navel paterae along the parapets. The attic floor is pedimented, flanked by deep scrolls, with windows each side featuring decorative volutes below the lintel. A decorative stone finial tops the apex of each pediment, with wallhead stacks flanking the gablets. The exterior is primarily constructed of rough-faced pink granite, accented by grey granite used for bow windows, cills, lintels, and the parapet. Fine detailing is evident at the margins. A grey granite base course and ground floor cill course are present, as is a moulded cill course on the first floor and a continuous sunken fillet below the first-floor lintels. A grey granite lintel band course runs along the first floor.

The northeast elevation has a gabled form with a lean-to addition on the ground floor. The northwest elevation was not visible during a survey in 2000, and the southwest elevation is also gabled. The roof is covered in grey slate with lead ridge details, and features corniced gablehead and wallhead stacks with circular cans. Stone skews and cast-iron rainwater goods are also present.

The interiors of both properties are noteworthy, particularly that of number 76. In number 74, original mouldings and doors remain, along with a staircase featuring decoratively turned balusters and scrolled brackets over the hall. Number 76 boasts fine stained glass panels in the porch, a decorative tiled floor, a dog-leg staircase with distinctive turned balusters, surviving mouldings and doors, a decorative cornice in the principal ground-floor room, panelling below the dado, and a marble fireplace (originally located above).

Low, rough-faced pink granite Aberdeen bond boundary walls extend to the south, incorporating grey granite snecking and coping. Gate piers, shared with the properties at numbers 72, 78 and 80 Hamilton Place, have grey granite shafts that sweep up from the plinth and are topped with scrolled caps. Rubble dividing walls run to the east and west.