Building Through Pend, 123 Constitution Street, Leith, Edinburgh

Robert Macfarlane Cameron, 1898. 2-storey, attic and basement 13-bay symmetrical office building with central pend and heavy Mannerist detail, large 4-storey and basement warehouse to rear. Cream sandstone, polished ashlar front and side elevations, squared and snecked rubble to rear, squared and snecked rubble with droved dressings to warehouse. Polished red granite base course to front (inset basement windows), ashlar to sides; cill course at ground and 1st floor; frieze and cornice above ground floor; eaves cornice; gabled end and centre bay with banded angle pilasters at ground floor, cartouche carvings to frieze, at 1st floor paired with fluting over

2 bands and Corinthianesque capitals (missing to right end bay); rounded reveals and fillets to mullioned and transomed windows; pedimented gables with lugs and kneelers.

NW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3 slightly advanced gabled centre bays; round-arched pend to centre with stepped voussoirs around scrolled keystone; at 1st floor bowed quadripartite oriel flanked by pilasters (detailed as above); bull?s-eye window to gablehead flanked by short shafts and blank square panels, ball finial. Bays flanking pend with round-arched and keystoned doorways, impost course, 2-leaf panelled doors and semi-circular fanlights with radial iron astragals, elaborate doorpieces with polished red granite pedestaled columns, composite capitals and cartouche carvings to frieze, open pediment with shell motif; corniced window at 1st floor above. 4 flanking bays with single windows at ground and 1st floor. Gabled end bays with 2 bipartite windows at ground floor (secondary doorway beneath to outer left); tripartite bowed oriel detailed as above with half-doomed roof at 1st floor.

SE (REAR) ELEVATION: round-arched pend to centre with nepus gable above; irregular single and bipartite windows to remaining bays;

2 wallhead stacks. Single storey link to warehouse to right.

SW (LINKS LANE) ELEVATION: 3-bay; band course above ground floor; centre bay with bipartite windows to ground and 1st floor; single windows to outer bays; shouldered wallhead stack (truncated) to left of centre.

NE ELEVATION: as above.

WAREHOUSE: rectangular-plan; single windows; 7-bay to NE with raised margins and segmental-arched lintels to single windows; 6-bay to SW courtyard elevation with raised walkway (formerly glazed); mansard roof with lift/loading tower to SW.

Timber sash and case windows, 2- and 3-pane, barred 4-pane windows to warehouse. Slate roof with metal flashings; 4 wallhead stacks (see above), transverse stacks, mansard roof with metal flashings to warehouse. Coped skews. Moulded eaves gutter.