3 Melville Gardens, Montrose

The terrace at 3 Melville Gardens, Montrose, was built in 1887 and comprises five, two-storey houses, with attics and a raised basement. They are designed in a Renaissance style with notable detailing. The front facades are constructed from sandstone ashlar, while the rear elevations use squared and snecked stone with channeled decoration to the raised basement. The houses feature a base course, a band course above the principal floor, an eaves cornice, and a panelled parapet with a broken pediment and a circular feature marking the date 1887.

The west-facing principal elevation has ten bays, with a bowed link extending to the outer right. The bays alternate, featuring canted windows at the basement, principal floor, and doorway with a projecting oriel above. Bay 7 reverses this pattern. Regular fenestration is seen at the first floor, and the outer bays are distinguished by curvilinear-headed, gabled wallhead dormers. The canted basement windows are smaller than the taller windows at the principal floor, which have a cornice and blocking course above. The doorway bays have a shallow projection at ground level with a round-arched entrance, panelled door, fluted timber architraves, and a simple fanlight. Capitals frame an ornate consoled and balconied bay window above the doorway, incorporating a stone columnar mullion and pilasters, side lights, oval ventilator openings beneath the sill, and a multi-pane coloured glass roof. A window is centred above the bay window on the second floor, supported by a bracketed sill. A later canted dormer is set back behind the parapet. The two-storey, bowed link to the right has a rusticated bull-faced wing with a sandstone ashlar base course, band course, and cornice above the ground and first floors, topped by a parapet. A window sits centrally at ground level, recessed in a red ashlar surround, flanked by two blocked slit windows. A canted oriel window is centrally positioned on the first floor, supported by columns that form mullions, with a panel inscribed "Victoria Villas" centred above, flanked by blocked oval windows.

The south elevation is a blank gable end with a quadrant wing to the left. The north elevation is also a blank gable end. The east-facing elevation displays varying features for each house. Numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 all have a bow window with stone mullions at the basement and raised principal floor, a window on the second floor, and for some, a canted dormer above. Number 7 is a mirror image of Number 3 with the bow window and dormer on the left.

The windows are timber sash and case, with columnar astragals on the balcony windows, and contain plate glass. Conical rooflights illuminate the staircase and landings. The roofs are grey slate pitched, with stone skewbacks and skewputts. Corniced ashlar gablehead and ridge stacks are present, along with a full complement of square cans. An ornamental eaves gutter runs along the top.

Interiors feature cornices and decorative plasterwork on the ceilings of the principal front rooms, and a vaulted dome above the stairwell.

Replacement wrought-iron railings are set on a coped stone base to the front (west). Coped brick walls define the garden boundaries to the rear (east).