Stables, Hermiston House, Edinburgh

Stables, Hermiston House, Edinburgh

This is a 2-storey, asymmetrical Scots-Baronial villa with 17th-century foundations but largely built by William Burn in the earlier 19th century. It was restored and modernized by Esme Gordon in 1955. The building is constructed of squared and snecked, honey-coloured rubble sandstone with ashlar dressings, chamfered reveals, and stugged quoins. It features crowstepped gables with armorial medallions set in the gableheads.

The main south elevation displays 7 asymmetrical bays. A broad, advanced gable projects at the outer right, canted at ground floor and corbelled to square at first floor. At the centre ground level is a French door with side lights, and a single window at the centre first floor. A round tower entrance marks the re-entrant left side, with a 1950s studded wooden door at its centre, a faded armorial panel above, and a sharp bolection moulding surround. A narrow window sits at first floor with a medallion above. To the left is a narrow bay with a gabled dormerhead, followed by an advanced M-gable with symmetrically disposed bays. Gargoyles, originally from Corstorphine Parish Church Edinburgh, crown the centre of two gables. A lower block to the left terminates in a crowstepped gable with a bipartite window at ground and a window with segmental headed pediment at first floor; the pediment is inscribed with the date 1633 and likely originates from an earlier house.

The north rear elevation features a full-height canted bay with blocking course at the centre of the left block, and an advanced broad gable to the outer right with two symmetrically disposed windows and a plaque in its gablehead. Immediately to the left of this gable is a window at both ground and stair level. A single-storey kitchen wing projects to the outer right, with two windows at the centre, a small window to the left, and a square dormer to the left; a tall, coped wallhead stack stands at the outer right.

The west elevation contains a lower kitchen wing with a broad gable to the outer right featuring some 1950s detailing. A door at ground level is accompanied by evidence of a blocked opening to its right and a window in the gablehead. Long timber-mullioned, tripartite window and door in two bays to the right are united by a blocked ashlar surround.

The windows are 12-pane sash and case windows, with 6-pane casement windows for the tripartite kitchen window. The roof is of grey slate with gabled form, tall coped wallhead and gablehead stacks, and ogee-moulded skewputts.

West lodge and gatepiers: The lodge is a 3-bay symmetrical structure with its main elevation facing West Hermiston. It has a centrally positioned door with a narrow plate glass fanlight, flanked by 4-pane sash and case windows. A wall of gig-house and outbuildings extends to the left, and a tall, corniced ridge stack sits on a pedestal base. A flat-roofed addition extends to the rear.

The gatepiers, immediately to the right of the lodge, are stugged squared piers with rounded caps. The pier to the left is keyed into the quoins of the lodge.

Gate towers, boundary wall, gig house and outbuildings: An L-plan range to the west of the house forms a kitchen court. The entrance is via square-plan, squat, piend-roofed gate towers. The south elevations feature blind arrow-slits with doors in the west side of the right tower and the north side of the left tower. A rubble wall with semicircular coping adjoins the kitchen block to the left, while a wall to the right links to the gig house.

The gig house is constructed of rubble with stugged sandstone dressings. It has two cart entrances—the left smaller than the right—each with 2-leaf boarded doors. An advanced block to the outer right contains a barred window on the south side and a door to the left of its gable. A square-plan, piend-roofed store with a boarded door and 5-pane letterbox fanlight abuts to the right.

Walled garden and greenhouse: A rubble wall with ashlar slab coping encloses the area to the south and east. A lean-to greenhouse against the north wall immediately to the right of the house has a brick base course and a square, brick, coped stack with octagonal pots. An ornate wrought-iron gate in the east wall provides access to the orchard.