7 Merchiston Place, Edinburgh

This is a five-storey corner tenement block, dated 1893 and designed by James B Dunn, situated on Merchiston Place in Edinburgh. The building's purpose was as a post office, with shops located on the ground floor and again on the fourth floor. It is constructed of cream-coloured sandstone ashlar, exhibiting a plain, bold cornice, and features a prominent corner tower. Above the shopfronts is a heavy cornice with a blocking course that serves as an apron to the first-floor windows. The window reveals are roll-moulded, and the dormerheads are crowstepped and finialled.

The southeast elevation, facing Merchiston Place, has three bays set back on the left side, with a full-height, canted window in the outermost bay, capped with a pyramidal roof. A central bay contains a door flanked by sidelights and a rectangular fanlight, while a single window sits above. To the right is a bipartite window on the ground floor, with single windows above. The fourth floor windows are positioned above machicolations, separated by a flue stack corbelled at the third floor. Four bays rise above the shops, incorporating the corner tower. This tower features an orielled canted angle bay with a corbelled base and a finialled ogee roof. A door is set within the chamfered corner, displaying deep chamfered reveals, roll-moulding, and a raised inscription reading "Boroughmuir Post Office" in gilded letters, accompanied by floral carving. A decorative carved corbel accentuates the angle bay, and windows are present on each floor above. A stone shopfront is located to the right of centre, while a plain timber shopfront is situated to the left. A deeply chamfered doorway with a large stone mullioned fanlight is found in the outermost left bay. A bay to the right of centre is blank above the ground floor, with a decorative carved datestone at the second floor. Single windows are present in the bays to the left of centre, and the fourth-floor windows are positioned below machicolations. The outer right bay has bipartite windows, set within an advanced panel above the first floor, designed to resemble stylised machicolations.

The northeast elevation, facing Montpelier Park, features four bays (excluding the corner tower) above stone shopfronts. The outer right bay presents an orielled canted bay, supported on a decorative carved corbel and capped with a pyramidal roof, with tripartite stone mullioned windows. The remaining bays have single windows, with fourth-floor windows positioned below individual machicolations below the cornice.

The windows are largely timber sash and case, with mostly two-pane upper sashes and plate glass lower sashes. The shopfronts (with the exception of No. 5) have an inter-war border glazing pattern. The roof is covered in green slate, with coped mutual stacks and some rendered areas. The interiors were not inspected in 1992.