135 George Street, Edinburgh

135 George Street in Edinburgh is a former classical house built between 1780 and 1790, with alterations made in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is three stories high and features an irregularly spaced three-bay façade made of droved cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. The ground floor has been extended with a modern stone-faced shopfront that incorporates an older cornice, and there is a door to the upper floors on the left side. The upper floors have their centre and right bays displaced to the right, with architraved windows that are corniced on the first floor. The building also has rusticated quoins, a cornice, and a blocking course.

At the rear, the building has been extended to connect with Young Street Lane South. The windows are 15-pane timber sash and case, and the roof is covered with grey slates, featuring ashlar coped mutual skews and rendered stacks.

Inside, the ground floor shop includes a grand saloon from the 19th century and incorporates some basement space with direct street access. There is now a separate entrance to an inserted mezzanine cafeteria at the rear. A distinct lobby leads to the upper floors with internal steps, and the original hall, which has been partitioned, features a swagged frieze. The cantilevered stone stair has quarter landings and alternate decorative cast-iron banisters, with plaster panelling above a scrolled foliate frieze and a pitched skylight.

On the first floor, the former two-bay Drawing Room is curiously displaced from front to back and has a delicate enriched ceiling with a central fan within a festooned oval, flanked by guilloche bands. It also features a panelled dado, a later painted panelled marble chimneypiece, and double doors with a panelled surround and cornice leading to a rear room with a panelled dado. Access to No 133 is available at the attic, which is listed separately.