9 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

Number 9 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

This is a townhouse forming part of William Playfair's monumental terrace, designed between 1820 and 1824, with number 9 constructed between 1823 and the early 1830s. The building is one unit within an extraordinarily long 121-bay palace-front terrace of townhouses distinguished by an arched and rusticated ground floor. The composition is ordered around a central section of three storeys with three prominent three-storey and attic pavilions articulated with Corinthian colonnaded features. Flanking sections to left and right comprise three-storey balustraded elements leading to three-storey sections with three-storey and attic Ionic colonnaded pavilions, with two-storey balustraded sections marking the outer edges. All houses sit above basements.

The external materials progress in finish with building height: the basement is rendered with painted droved ashlar; the ground floor features V-chamfered rustication; the upper floors display polished ashlar. The rear elevation shows predominantly coursed squared rubble with dressed margins. The principal elevation is articulated by base and impost courses, a dividing band between basement and ground floor, a band between ground and first floors, and a narrow band course broken by a window to each bay at first floor level.

The north (principal) elevation presents a three-bay front. The basement contains a window to the left bay and a timber-panelled door with three-light fanlight to the centre bay, both set in segmentally-headed openings. The area beneath the plat is blocked by a droved ashlar wall with a bipartite window. The ground floor features steps and a platt overarching the basement recess, leading to a timber-panelled door with flanking margin lights and a segmental fanlight in the left bay. The upper floors of the left bay are distinguished by an unbroken band course above the first floor windows, an eaves cornice, and a balustraded parapet; the roof carries a dormer window to each bay. The centre and right bays are articulated by giant attached Ionic columns at first floor level dividing the bays and supporting an entablature between the second and attic floors, with pilasters dividing the attic floor bays. An eaves cornice and blocking course complete this elevation.

The south (rear) elevation is also three bays, with the left bay rising three storeys plus basement, and the centre and right bays three storeys plus basement and attic. A band course divides the ground and first floors; a cornice and band course divide the second and attic floors. The left bay has a rounded corner. A single-storey modern flat-roofed rendered extension is attached to the ground floor of the left bay.

Fenestration is predominantly regular across both principal and rear elevations. The ground floor features round-headed openings within round-headed overarches. Glazing is predominantly 15-pane, with 12-pane to the basement and second floor on the north elevation, 6-pane to the attic floor on the north elevation and second floor on the south elevation, 6 lying-pane to the south attic, and 4-pane to the first floor left bay on the south elevation. The windows are predominantly timber sash and case.

The roof is mansard in form to the left bay of the front elevation, elsewhere a pitched M-roof with central valleys, laid in graded grey slate with stone skews and skewputts. The ridge stacks are mutual and corniced ashlar; the principal elevation stack to the west is surmounted by linked octagonal flues, while the eastern stack is a mutual ridge stack with predominantly circular cans.

The boundary treatment comprises stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars and spear-head finials to the front elevation, where they edge the basement recess and platt. The railings are distinguished by a distinctive circled border. To the rear, forming the garden boundary, is a random rubble wall with flat coping; railings formerly present at the south end are now missing.