St Catherine's Convent, 4 Lauriston Gardens, Edinburgh

St Catherine's Convent, 4 Lauriston Gardens, Edinburgh

A conventual building in domestic gothic style, created in stages between 1860 and 1892. The original 2- and 3-storey building was designed by David Cousin in 1860, then substantially enlarged by Archibald Macpherson with additions in 1887 and further alterations in 1892. The complex is dominated by a 4-storey Mansard-roofed tower to the west. The 1887 additions included 2-storey ranges, a church, and a diminutive cloister garth. The 1892 works added an attic with swept dormers incorporated into the church design.

The building is constructed in squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings. It features a base course, chamfered reveals, stone mullions, and some hoodmoulds and relieving arches. Roofs are graded grey slates with stone skews and bracketed skewputs. Chimneys are corniced stone with circular cans and are splayed to gableheads.

The south range, Cousin's 1860 work, is a 2-storey and attic composition with 8 bays. The elevation features a canted stairwell to the centre that jettied above ground floor and breaks the eaves in a panelled parapet with decorative blocking course. A small window sits at the centre ground level, with regular windows above. Tall windows flank the centre at ground level arranged 1-3-1 on each side with a lintel course; 3 windows occupy the first floor and 3 small windows at the third floor break the eaves with finialled gabled dormerheads flanking the centre. A lower projecting 2-storey gabled bay to the outer right contains a 4-light window to the first floor, with paired dormerheads breaking eaves to the east return. The 4-storey Mansard-roofed tower rises to the west elevation.

Macpherson's 1887 northern additions comprise a flat-roofed porch to the west set in a re-entrant angle at the foot of the earlier tower, with a timber panelled door featuring gothic details set in a decoratively-carved hood-moulded Tudor-arched surround. A 2-storey, 5-bay block to the east is regularly fenestrated with stone-mullioned bipartite windows, and features a full-height piend-roofed 4-light canted window breaking the eaves to the right.

The interior contains a decorative mosaic floor to the vestibule. A pointed-arch ceiling runs along the corridor by the chapel, with boldly carved and linked corbels bearing decorative trefoil details. A cantilevered scale and platt staircase features wrought-iron balustrades. Statues of saints line the corridor in niches. A wainscot rail and round-arched window recesses overlook the courtyard. Timber chimneypieces and marble slips appear throughout, with a decorative plaster cornice to the library and strapwork to sections of corridor.

The church, also by Macpherson in 1887, adjoins the north of the conventual buildings with a corridor to the south bounding the courtyard. The west gable is steeply pitched with mannered Renaissance details and corniced windows. A stone-mullioned and -transomed tripartite window with an open swan-neck pediment cradling a square panel above is flanked by single windows, with a bipartite attic window containing an oval opening above. The north elevation is abutted by a piend-roofed porch to a gabled sacristy running parallel to the church. A gabled hall projects at right angles to the left, with a tripartite window in the north gable. The pitched roof features swept dormers.

The church interior is a single-aisled chapel with a gallery to the south above the conventual corridor. Fine woodwork includes decorative consoles to beams and cornice, strapwork plaster above the altar, and panelled doors in surrounds with fluted pilasters and swan-necked pediments. Brass door fittings are present. An oval window with decorative leaded pattern is cradled in a pediment over the south door. Ornately-carved arcaded stalls with canopies occupy the north and south sides. A decorative timber balustrade borders the gallery. The altar is a tripartite Renaissance marble composition; a reredos features marble wainscot, statues in niches, and a painting of the Crucifixion. A modern marble lectern and stool are present. A tripartite stained glass window occupies the west end.

Windows throughout are predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case frames.

Retaining walls, gatepiers and gate are constructed in ashlar-coped squared and snecked grey sandstone. Walls to the west are corniced with ashlar piers (ball-finialled to the left of the gate) stepping downward. Arch-coped rubble retaining walls to the east support the site. A wrought-iron gate with decorative wrought-iron arch stands at the entrance, flanked by long and short ashlar blocks.