Croston Lodge Nursing Home, 3A Chalmers Crescent, Edinburgh

Croston Lodge Nursing Home is a Baronial style villa dating from 1884, designed by Robertson Paterson & Son. It is a two-storey, three-bay rectangular building, with a three-storey tower bay and a service wing. The construction is of squarred and snecked rubble, with a lightly stugged ashlar facade on the east side, featuring polished dressings. Architraved window surrounds and projecting eaves are characteristic features.

The east (entrance) elevation has a central, three-storey tower bay. A round-arched doorpiece, pilastered and deeply moulded, features a keystone, carved consoles, an impost cornice and incised paterae. It contains a panelled door and a plate glass fanlight. Above the door is a tripartite window flanked by corniced dies, which likely originally held window guards or a small balcony. Two small stone brackets, positioned at the third floor level, suggest similar original features. A gabled, finialled tripartite window breaks the eaves above the tower, with a timber bracketed grey slate pyramidal roof, decorative finial, a single circular stack, and a double can stack. A full-height canted window flanks the right side of the east elevation, with a dividing cornice, carved aprons to the first-floor windows, and a timber bracketed thistle finialled roof. A single-storey canted window is to the outer left, with a lead canopy; a finialled tripartite window above breaks the eaves in steeply gabled dormerheads. The north elevation is largely blank, except for two stone bargeboard brackets and a fire escape. The south elevation has a single window at first-floor level and two stone bargeboard brackets. The west elevation incorporates a low, two-storey, L-plan service wing to the left. An advanced stair bay, centrally located, features a round-arched painted glass window. Bipartite windows flank the bay on both sides at first-floor level, and a bipartite window is located to the outer right at ground floor. A single-storey conservatory was added in 1986.

Plate glass sash and case windows are found on the east elevation; elsewhere, a mixture of three-pane sash and case windows are present. The roof is grey slate, with a tripartite dormer window to the west, and rounded wallhead stacks to the west, north and south, topped with octagonal moulded cans.

The interior, partially inspected in 1990, reveals a glass-panelled vestibule door, encaustic tiles, decorative plaster cornices, a turned wooden balustrade and carved head-shaped consoles.

A low, coped rubble boundary wall fronts the street, and a mutual boundary wall stands approximately two metres high.