Red House, 1 Gillsland Road South, Edinburgh

Red House, located at 1 Gillsland Road South in Edinburgh, is a substantial 2-storey, 5-bay Jacobethan villa designed by Professor Frank Worthington Simon in 1897. The building is constructed from red sandstone, featuring squared and snecked rubble with polished ashlar dressings. Architectural details include chamfered reveals and rounded reveals for the bipartite and tripartite windows, ashlar mullions, lugged and finialled gables, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters, and tall corniced wallhead stacks that are linked to the roof.

On the southwest (front) elevation, there is an advanced gabled entrance bay at the center, which has a tall ashlar base course and a round-arched corniced doorway adorned with a keystone and two proud voussoirs. This doorway features a panelled door and a semi-circular fanlight with square leaded panes, with a tripartite window located above on the first floor. To the left of the center, there is a bay with a tripartite window and a single window at the ground floor, along with a tripartite window and a corbelled wallhead stack on the first floor. The bay to the right of the center contains a single window at the ground floor. The outer bays feature canted transomed windows (1-2-1) at the ground floor and bipartite windows in slightly advanced panels breaking the eaves in the gable above.

The northwest (Colinton Road) elevation showcases a central full-height advanced shouldered wallhead stack and two small windows to the left. The southeast elevation includes a broad lower 2-storey service wing to the right, which has a half-piend and catslide roof, a modern rectangular dormer, and single windows on the return, along with two shouldered wallhead stacks.

On the northeast (rear) elevation, there are recessed bays at the center featuring a tall bipartite transomed stair window with a pattern of leaded panes, as well as single windows. The lower advanced outer bays contain bipartite and tripartite windows to the left and a wallhead stack to the right. A secondary door flanked by single windows is located at the rear of the service wing.

The villa features 12-pane timber sash and case windows for the single windows, with square leaded panes for the bipartite and tripartite windows. The roof is covered with red tiles and has a piend and platformed bellcast design, along with five wallhead stacks. Ornamental cast-iron gutter brackets add to the architectural detail.

The interior was not seen in 1992. The property is enclosed by a low rubble wall with saddleback coping, along with later gates and railings.