38, 40, 42, Marchmont Crescent, Edinburgh

38, 40, and 42 Marchmont Crescent in Edinburgh are a pair of four-storey, five-bay tenements built in 1880 by architects R Thornton Shiells and Thomson, designed in the Jacobean style. The buildings are constructed from squared and snecked sandstone, featuring polished ashlar dressings. They have a base course, a dividing band course above the ground floor, and cornices that separate the windows on each floor. The windows have raised surrounds that extend down to form aprons, except on the ground floor, and include basket-arched windows with chamfered reveals and bracketed cills at ground level.

The west entrance elevation of each block features doorways located at the second, third, and fourth bays, with panelled doors and plate glass fanlights. There are single windows flanking the second and fourth bays. The outer right bays have full-height canted windows topped with shaped pediments, faceted conical roofs, and iron finials. An identical bay is located at the outer left of No 38. There is also a full-height advanced bay with tripartite windows, a shaped pediment, a French pavilion roof, and cast-iron brattishing to the outer left of No 32. The remaining bays contain single windows, with the fourth-floor windows breaking the eaves in round-arched pediments at the second and fourth bays, and shaped pediments at the central bays.

The windows are predominantly plate glass sash and case, with four panes in the main lights of the canted windows. The roof is covered in grey slate with lead flashing, and there is a corniced mutual stack serving Nos 32-36, along with coped and rendered stacks elsewhere, and moulded cans.

The interior was not seen in 1990. There is a low boundary wall along the street.