St Joseph's House Nursing Home, 41-45 Gilmore Place, Edinburgh

St Joseph's House Nursing Home is a 3-storey with attic, 13-bay, T-plan block dating from 1889 by J.M. Monro. The design incorporates an earlier 18th century house, which forms the central 7 bays. A chapel was added to the rear in 1897. The building is constructed of coursed stugged sandstone with painted polished ashlar margins.

The north elevation features a coped rubble wall to an advanced single-storey section with a pitched roof at ground level. An advanced gable contains a doorway with a Celtic cross, a recessed timber door with ornamental ironwork, and the words "Little Sisters of the Poor" carved in relief below the lintel. Venetian windows are present on the 1st and 2nd floors of the central gabled bay. Single windows are found on the 1st, 2nd and attic floors in the flanking bays, excepting a bipartite window at the 1st floor in the bay to the left. Bipartite windows appear at the 1st and 2nd floors of a recessed bay, with a single window at the attic level, and another single window in the adjoining bay to the left. Similar details are found in two gabled bays to the left, with a blind arrow slit in the gable to the right. An advanced, 3-storey, M-crowstepped gable wing is situated to the outer left, featuring mullioned bipartite windows to the ground, 1st, and 2nd floors. A shouldered, segmental-arched window is set within the ground floor of the bay to the right, with a stepped wallhead and single windows to the recessed upper floors. A corniced wallhead and capped finials are also present, with a return to the main block being harled. A bipartite window is flanked by single windows to the 1st floor of the bay to the right of the central gabled bay, with a bipartite and single window above on the 2nd floor. Two dormers are visible at the attic level. Bipartite windows are present on both floors of the adjoining bay, and finally, in the gabled end bay, bipartite windows grace the 1st and 2nd floors, a circular motif pediment adorns the margin at the 2nd floor, and a round-arched window is positioned at the attic. A bracketed, panelled, square-plan turret with a corniced finial sits to the outer right of the gable. Single windows are spaced on the upper floors of a piended, 3-storey, recessed bay adjoining at the right.

The building’s windows are primarily 8- and 12-pane timber sash and case types. A grey slate piended roof covers the structure, with corniced piended dormers on bays without gables, except for the bay to the left of central gable. There’s also a modern, flat-roofed, square-plan addition with grey slate aprons and a 2-light rectangular window. Corniced wallhead and gablehead stacks feature corniced cans.

The interior of the 2-storey rear chapel has been completely modernised, including the installation of stained glass.

A coped, coursed rubble boundary wall with iron railings surrounds a courtyard to the left. An advanced gabled pedestrian entrance incorporates the doorway described above. A square-plan gate pier with iron gates marks the vehicular entrance at the outer right.