23 Bernard Street, Edinburgh

23 Bernard Street in Edinburgh is a three-storey and attic corner tenement block built by Thomas Beattie in 1815. The building features classical details and has arcaded shops on the ground floor. It is constructed from grey sandstone, with a polished ashlar ground floor that has been painted, droved ashlar with polished dressings above, and coursed rubble at the rear and side. The building includes a base course, a rusticated ground floor of polished ashlar, a band course above, a cill course at the first floor, a band cill course at the second floor, and an eaves cornice with a blocking course that is leaded.

The northeast elevation facing Bernard Street is near-symmetrical with nine bays. The three central bays are slightly recessed, featuring a shop doorway in the center with a panelled door and a semi-circular blocked fanlight, flanked by a shop window on the left and a doorway to the common stair on the right. The first-floor windows are set in a blind arcade with fluted aprons, while the second floor has single windows. The three outer bays are slightly advanced, with the right bay containing a shopfront with a central doorway flanked by windows and an original radial fanlight, and the left bay mirroring the shop and common stair doorway. The first-floor windows are architraved, with the center window consoled and pedimented, while the outer windows are corniced. Above, the second floor has single windows, and there are two rectangular tripartite dormers on the left and a single dormer on the right.

The northwest elevation facing Maritime Street has six bays, with single windows at the ground floor and a round-arched doorway on the outer right. The first floor features single windows, with every second window being architraved and corniced, although one is blinded on the outer left. The second floor also has single windows, with two blinded on the outer left. There are two rectangular dormers on this elevation.

The southwest rear elevation has single windows, some of which have been altered and feature iron window guards. The gable elevation is blank with an apex stack, and the rear wallhead is raised.

The building has 12-pane timber sash and case windows, a slate roof with metal flashings, and corniced mutual stacks along with an apex stack. The interior was not seen in 1993.