Lady Stair's House, Lady Stair's Close, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh

1622, restored and rebuilt, George Shaw Aitken, 1896-7. Asymmetrical 3-storey and attic house (now museum) with 17th century Scottish details; ball-finialled bell-cast-roof to engaged octagonal corner stair-tower to SE. Random rubble with ashlar dressings. Broad bracketed eaves. Long and short quoins.

S ELEVATION: 2 windows to ground, 1st and 2nd floors to centre: glazed door to bracketed balcony with decorative wrought-iron railings to 3rd floor. Corbelled out above 1st floor to left (chamfered corner); carved panel (see Notes) below hoodmoulded 3rd floor window; initials (SR) thistles and roses and coronet in semicircular panels to finialed gable.

OCTAGONAL CORNER TOWER TO SE: 2-leaf studded timber boarded door with decorative iron hinges in roll-moulded surround; carved lintel (see Notes); small window lighting stair above; corbelled out at 3rd floor; string course and small moulded cornice over timber boarded door in chamfered surround to moulded semicircular stone-balustraded balcony, flanked by small windows. Irregular windows lighting stair to NE.

E ELEVATION: 4 paired windows with wrought-iron grilles to ground floor. Vertically arranged tripartite gabled windows (lighting double height hall) in left and centre bays (pediment of that to left engaged in tower). Tall shouldered wallhead stacks in 2nd bay from left and to right. Segmental-arched carved panel (see Notes) in 2nd bay from left. 2 windowed gable to right; small window in ashlar gablet to outer right. 3 dormers in roof.

S ELEVATION: single crowstepped gabled bay. Segmental-arched window to ground; mullioned bipartite to 1st floor; quadrapartite windows set back behind decorative wrought-iron railings to 3rd and 4th floors, in segmental-arched opening to 3rd, round-arched to 4th floors.

W ELEVATION: lead-roofed rubble lean-to at ground with door in ashlar surround to S. paired small windows and corbelled out finialled gable above; canted bay to left (link to NE block of James Court) with small-pane glazed timber windows to 3rd floor. Decorative brattishing to roof.

INTERIOR: turnpike stair with impressed initials (SR), thistles and roses. False ceiling conceals vaulted cellar. Decorative carved timber pedimented architrave to door at 1st floor. Double height hall: tall windows with timber shutters; curved timber gallery to W with decorative timber balustrade; timber-compartmented ceiling with carved initials, thistles, roses and holly; wrought-iron chandelier; original chimneypiece (stone canopy restored by Shaw) with moulded jambs and columns with swept pedestals and capitals. 18th century chimneypiece in N room to 1st floor.

Predominantly 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows. Graded greenish slates; terracotta ridge tiles. Grey cast-iron down pipes with initials (SR) on hoppers. Corniced ashlar wallhead stacks with tall circular cans.