45-47 Blackfriars Street, Edinburgh

45-47 Blackfriars Street in Edinburgh is a pair of four-storey tenements with a gabled attic, built between 1870 and 1871. Designed by David Clunas, adapting a design by David Cousin and John Lessels, these buildings feature five bays and showcase 17th century revival detailing. They are stepped to accommodate the sloping ground and are part of a planned row on the east side of Blackfriars Street.

The structure is made of squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, and has chamfered window margins. The ground floor features painted shop fronts, while there is a string course at the first floor and a corbel table above the second floor. The northwest corner facing Skinners Close is canted at the ground level and corbelled out on each floor above. Notably, there is a bipartite window in the fourth-storey outer left bay, which is topped with a strapwork pediment. Some of the gables are crowstepped.

The windows are plate glass timber sash and case, and the roof is covered with graded grey Scottish slate. The buildings have coped end and wall-head gable stacks, along with cast-iron rainwater goods.