Portobello Cemetery, 200 Milton Road East, Edinburgh

Portobello Cemetery, located at 200 Milton Road East in Edinburgh, was designed by Robert Paterson in 1876. It features a two-storey lodge house with single-storey sections, arranged in a complex T-plan. The building has a distinctive jerkin head and decorative barge-boarding, with a porch at the northwest re-entrant angle. It is constructed from squared and snecked sandstone rubble, with a base course.

The northwest elevation facing Milton Road East has an advanced two-storey section with a single bay. There is a window at the ground level and a timber oriel window at the first floor, supported by bold timber brackets with decorative paterae on the apron.

The southwest elevation consists of three bays, with a gabled porch at the center featuring a modern flush door and a Tudor-arched plate glass fanlight above. The left bay is blank except for a carved shield plaque that reads: "Portobello Cemetery opened 1877 - Thomas Wood Provost," located at the first floor level. The right bay is advanced and includes a single-storey section with a piend-roofed canted window.

On the southeast elevation, there are two bays; the left bay has a gabled window, while the right bay is advanced and features a tripartite window and a small dormer with a conical roof behind the attic of the two-storey arm.

The windows throughout the building are timber-mullioned sash and case windows, each with three panes, and some break the eaves on the northeast elevation. The roof is covered with grey slate and has a jerkin head on the northeast, as well as on the right bay of the southwest elevation and the right bay of the southeast elevation. The building is adorned with timber barge-boarding and ornate timber eaves. There are bull-faced ashlar and coped stacks in the right bay of the northwest elevation, as well as a wallhead stack on the same elevation. The roof also features terracotta tiles and finials.

The interior was not seen during the last inspection in 1994.

The cemetery is enclosed by boundary walls, gates, gatepiers, and railings made of bull-faced ashlar with coping. The entrance has a serpentine base wall and four tall polygonal gatepiers topped with gablet details, sawtooth conical ashlar caps, and large ball finials. There are cast-iron railings and fine gates, with a pedestrian opening flanking the center vehicular entrance.

Within the graveyard, there is a variety of gravestones and memorials, including a memorial to Dr. Balfour by John S. Rhind from 1907, a granite obelisk, and a bronze relief portrait.

Additionally, there is a pavilion shelter that serves as a waiting room, featuring timber boarding with chevron patterns above the cill level, small-pane windows, a fretted timber pelmet, a terracotta-tiled roof, and timber overhanging eaves.