Herbarium (Old), Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 4 June 2003. Assembly hall.
Herbarium (Old), Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
- WRENN ID
- long-beam-hemlock
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- City of Edinburgh
- Constituency
- Edinburgh North and Leith MP: Tracy Gilbert (Lab)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 4 June 2003
- Type
- Assembly hall
- OS grid reference
- NT 248 752
- Coordinates
- 55.96451, -3.20569
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Old Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh is a single-storey and basement assembly hall built between 1842 and 1843 by David Cousin. It features a five-bay Picturesque cottage style with very deep eaves supported by ornamental brackets. The central bay is advanced and includes a two-leaf timber panelled door, a window above, and decorative bargeboards. There are small wings with corniced wallhead stacks on the outer right and left.
The building is constructed from squared coursed sandstone with droved ashlar dressings on the principal elevation and sides, while the rear is made of random rubble. It has long and short ashlar quoins and slightly raised margins around the windows and doors. The principal elevation is regularly fenestrated with tall windows, and there are basement windows below. The rear features an irregular arrangement of doors and windows.
The windows are timber sash and case, with border-glazed windows on the principal elevation and 4-pane glazing at the rear. The roof is covered with graded grey slate.
Inside, the main hall has a depressed-arch coffered ceiling adorned with decorative trusses, corbels, and bosses.
Local climate
Herbarium (Old), Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 970 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 76% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 53% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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