12 Morningside Park, Edinburgh

This is a curving terrace of twelve single-storey and attic houses, built in stages between approximately 1870 and 1881. Numbers 8-14 were designed by Pilkington & Bell; numbers 20 and 22 date from 1878; and numbers 24 and 26 were designed by Archibald Macpherson. The houses are generally two- and three-bay wide and exhibit varying cottage-style details.

The houses are constructed of cream sandstone, with coursed and squared rubble walls, and droved ashlar dressings to the front elevations. Numbers 24-20 have squared and snecked rubble frontages. The rear and side elevations feature squared and snecked rubble. Basements are present at numbers 24, 26, 28, and 30. Each house has a two-leaf panelled door with a plate glass fanlight above.

The front (southwest) elevation of numbers 8-14 features three bays with stop-chamfered reveals. A projecting gabled bay is centrally located, with a shoulder-arched doorway and a blank tablet in the gablehead. A further projecting gabled bay with a platform is on the right side, featuring a canted window with a half-piend roof and a bipartite window with a round-arched light and square hoodmould in the gablehead. A bipartite window and a canted dormer are located on the left side. Decorative bargeboards are carved on numbers 8, 12, and plain on number 14; cast-iron brattishing adorns the gable of number 10, and cast-iron brackets support the roof of the canted windows on numbers 10 and 12.

Numbers 16 and 18 are similar, with pointed gables and chamfered reveals. Exceptions include a round-arched, keystoned doorway without a gable, the absence of a hoodmould over the gablehead’s bipartite window, and exposed rafters and bargeboards. Number 18 has a pendant feature to its bargeboards, while the canted window is adorned with moulded and panelled aprons.

Numbers 20 and 22 (dated 1878) resemble numbers 16 and 18, with plain round-arched doorways and a transomed canted ground floor window. Flat-roofed dormers corbel over the outer windows, and the main gable features a braced kingpost rising from paired brackets on stone corbels. A small catslide roof extends over the doorway, sitting on timber and stone brackets and corbels.

Numbers 24 and 26 are two bays wide, with mirrored elevations. Exposed rafters feature prominently. Round-arched doorways are centrally located, flanked by small windows. A canted quadripartite dormer sits above. Gabled and finialled outer bays incorporate canted ground floor windows with rubble parapets, and bipartite windows in the gableheads.

Numbers 28 and 30 are similar to numbers 24 and 26, with half-piend roofs to the canted windows and two single rectangular timber dormers with half-piend roofs. A kingpost is visible on number 30. The east and northwest elevations are characterized by truncated gables framed by short corniced wallhead stacks, with a central bay window on the east elevation featuring a tall segmental-arched stair window with border glazing.

The windows are timber sash and case with plate glass glazing. The roofs are slate piend and platformed with lead flashings. Four wallhead stacks and mutual stacks are present. Moulded eaves gutters and gutterheads are also visible.

The interior was not inspected in 1992.

A low rubble wall with saddleback coping fronts the property, while a higher boundary wall to number 8 has semi-circular coping. Some original railings are present on bridges at numbers 24-30.