2 Merchiston Grove, Edinburgh

A four-storey tenement block designed by Edward Calvert in 1895, built in a U-shaped plan with a distinctive Baronial character. The building comprises four stepped residential blocks with ground-floor shops on Slateford Road, arranged around interconnected courtyards.

The structure is constructed from squared and snecked cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Stop-chamfered arrises, tabbed and raised margins, and a decorated cornice emphasise the quality of the masonry. The building displays exceptional decorative detail throughout, particularly at eaves and roofline level.

Architectural Features

The street elevations are punctuated by canted and oriel windows, with octagonal oriel towers corbelled out from chamfered ground-floor entrances at corners. These towers feature ogee roofs clad in fish-scale tiles and topped with lead ball finials. The skyline is highly decorated with an array of pedimented dormerheads, many broken or featuring pedestals supporting finials or crescent moons. Canted windows at roofline are corbelled to square in gableheads with sawtooth coping and some with cloverleaf finials. Half-crowstepped and fully crowstepped gableheads feature ornamental stones and stacks, some supported by scrolled consoles or topped with sculptural elements including a dragon and eagles.

Second-floor window cills sit on decorative brackets with carved detail. Ground-floor shopfronts are original in parts, with 2- and 3-bay arrangements separated by panelled pilasters and crowned with a cornice. Deep-set doors to common stairs have 3-pane fanlights and are framed with long and short margin dressings. A band course runs above the shopfronts, with a further cornice at second-floor level.

North-West Elevation (Slateford Road)

This principal façade comprises 18 bays arranged as four distinct tenement blocks, each stepping up slightly. The first block of five bays includes a broken pedimented dormerhead in the end bay with a pedestal supporting a crescent moon, while the fifth bay has bipartite windows and a matching dormerhead. The second and third blocks each comprise four bays with orielled corners and central wallhead stacks beneath crowstepped half-gableheads. The fourth block of five bays features varied fenestration including a dragon ornament appearing to support its adjacent stack.

North-East Elevation (Merchiston Grove)

Two distinct residential blocks are joined by a single-storey three-bay link with chamfered arrises and cornice. The first block includes a date plaque reading "1895" in a square frame bearing the initials "WO" within a central shield. The second block is a symmetrical four-bay tenement with full-height canted corner windows, a central entrance with a 9-pane fanlight, and eagles at eaves flanking the central stack.

South-West Elevation (Shandon Place)

A three-bay return faces this street, followed by a stepped and recessed five-bay residential block set behind a low wall and railings. The corners have full-height canted bays corbelled to square with Dutch gableheads, while the central bay features closely grouped windows beneath a crowstepped pediment. A tenement stair door at ground level replaces the left window.

Materials and Details

Chimney stacks to the front elevations feature long and short ashlar quoins and cornices, with simple coping to return stacks. Moulded skewputts and grey slates finish the roof. Black cast-iron drainpipes with moulded gutters complete the external fabric.

Original timber sash-and-case windows survive in parts, though many have been replaced with modern glazing. The interior was not inspected at the time of listing in 1992.