7 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

William Playfair, designed 1820-4. No 7 built between 1823-early 1830s. Part of extremely long 121-bay palace front terrace of townhouses with arched and rusticated ground floor; to centre, 3-storey section punctuated by three 3-storey and attic Corinthian colonnaded pavilions; to left and right flanking 3-storey balustraded sections leading to 3-storey sections with 3-storey and attic Ionic colonnaded pavilions; 2-storey balustraded sections to outer left and right; basements to all houses. Droved ashlar to basement; V-chamfered rustication to ground floor; polished ashlar to upper floors; predominantly coursed squared rubble with dressed margins to rear elevation. To principal elevation: base course; dividing band between basement and ground floor; impost course to ground floor; dividing band between ground and 1st floors; to 1st floor, narrow band course broken by window to each bay; band courses above 2nd floor; eaves cornice; balustraded parapet. Regular fenestration to principal elevation; predominantly regular fenestration to rear elevation; to ground floor, round-headed openings in round-headed overarches.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3-bay, 3-storey and basement elevation. To basement, windows to left and right bays; to centre bay, timber and glazed door with 3-light fanlight; all in segmentally-headed openings. To ground floor, to right bay, steps and platt (conjoined with those of No 6) overarching basement recess leading to timber-panelled door with flanking 4-light margin lights and segmental fanlight with petal style glazing. To 1st floor, cast-iron balconnettes to windows.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: 2-bay, 3-storey, and basement elevation. Band course dividing ground and 1st floors; eaves cornice; blocking course.

GLAZING etc: predominantly 12-pane glazing; to principal elevation, 17-pane glazing to ground floor and 15-pane glazing to 1st floor; to rear elevation, 6-lying-pane glazing to ground floor to right bay; glazing predominantly in timber sash and case windows. M-roof with central valleys; graded grey slate; stone skews and skewputts. To W, mutual corniced ashlar ridge stacks to front and rear pitches; predominantly circular cans.

RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: to front, edging basement recess and platt, stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars, spear-head finials and distinctive circled border. To rear, forming boundary of garden, random rubble wall with flat coping; S end surmounted by cast-iron railings.