Bailie John Mcmorran's House, 5-6 Riddle's Court, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh

Bailie John Mcmorran's House, 5-6 Riddle's Court, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh

A substantial 5-storey and attic 8-bay tenement dating from circa 1590 and 1726, with significant later alterations and additions by George Smith (circa 1840), Stuart Henbest Capper (1890 and 1893), George Shaw Aitken (1895), and John Wilson Paterson (1958-9 and 1964). The building incorporates remains of two 16th-century 3-storey L-plan blocks to the rear, forming Riddle's Close.

The north elevation facing Lawnmarket is constructed of squared rubble with polished dressings. Later pilastraded shops occupy the ground floor, with a broad red sandstone consoled cornice and rusticated round-arched entrance to a pend by G.S. Aitken (1895) to the left. Above, the elevation is regularly fenestrated with small windows to the outer right. Three curvilinear-gabled 2-window wallhead dormers rise to the attic, with circular panels decorating the outer dormers.

The rear elevation within Riddle's Court shows the projecting rear of the Lawnmarket block with an octagonal stair tower to the right, featuring a timber boarded door in a bolection-moulded surround inscribed with the date 1726. Modern flat work with deck-access balconies and harled exterior occupies the centre, while irregularly fenestrated rubble bays stand to the left. A 3-storey 16th-century wing faces north from the south side. This wing displays moulded string courses between floors and features an advanced section to the left (the jamb of a demolished 16th-century wing) with a timber pentice-roofed external stair by Henbest Capper (1893). A timber boarded door in a roll-moulded surround sits in the splayed corner of a re-entrant angle, corbelled out above. A barrel-vaulted pend runs to Riddle's Close to the right, inscribed by Capper, with a timber boarded door to the outer right.

Riddle's Close itself contains harled rubble with ashlar dressings. A 3-storey 3-bay south-facing elevation displays moulded string courses between floors. A round-arched pend connects from Riddle's Court to the left; a timber boarded door with small-pane fanlight sits to the centre, with a small window to the right and regular fenestration above. A 2-storey 2-bay west-facing elevation features a moulded string course stepping over ground-floor windows, with steeply gabled dormerheaded windows breaking the eaves at the 1st floor and a wallhead stack with cannon spout to the outer right. The 3-storey 3-bay north-facing elevation includes a finialled and pedimented 2-window dormer to the attic on the right and a splayed corner to the outer right. Moulded string courses appear as bracketed cornices to doors, with small windows to the 1st and 2nd floors to the outer left (vestiges of a stone hood mark a former hoist above the 1st-floor window). Two-leaf and roll-moulded timber boarded doors are positioned to the left, centre, right and splayed corner, with paired windows to the 1st and 2nd floors to the right. A 3-storey 2-bay east-facing elevation is irregularly fenestrated, with a moulded string course between the ground and 1st floors, a date of 1587 inscribed over a 2nd-floor window to the left, and metal wall plates to the upper right.

The south elevation facing Victoria Terrace is a 3-storey and attic 5-bay frontage in coursed ashlar, featuring crowstepped dormerheaded windows (the centre window formerly an apex stack) breaking the eaves at the 3rd floor. The ground floor is arcaded with a deep cornice, hood-moulded round-arched openings, timber panelled doors alternating with windows, and a scrolled console above the central doorway. The 1st and 2nd floors have lugged architraves to the windows, with keyblocked treatment to the 1st floor.

Interior principal rooms retain significant features. The south-east room has panelled walls and a marble chimneypiece, with an early to mid-17th-century compartmented plaster ceiling framing thistles, roses, acorns, fleur-de-lys and lions in curved and geometric shapes. The south-west room displays panelled walls and a bolection-moulded chimneypiece, with an elaborate compartmented painted ceiling by Thomas Bonnar (restored by M.M. Pryor in 1996 for the City of Edinburgh Council). An inscription on this ceiling records restoration work by S. Mitchell and Wilson (1890), S.H. Capper (1892), and G.S. Aitken (1895), with the ceiling itself painted by Thomas Bonnar in 1897. The north-west room features timber-panelled walls, a corniced mantle to the chimneypiece, a segmental-arched recess to the north, and a plaster ceiling dated 1648 decorated with plasterwork crown, lions, thistles and roses.

Throughout the building, timber sash-and-case windows employ 18-pane glazing in the Lawnmarket block and 12-pane glazing in the Riddle's Close and Victoria Terrace sections. The roof is finished in graded grey slates with a tall brick ridge stack to the Lawnmarket elevation and vestiges of rubble stacks to Riddle's Close. A cast-iron downpipe with decorative hopper adorns the Victoria Terrace elevation.