Dalry House, Orwell Place, Edinburgh

Dalry House is a large house situated on Orwell Place in Edinburgh, initially built in the late 17th century, possibly around 1668. The original structure was a three-storey, three-bay building aligned northwest/southeast, featuring a polygonal stair tower to the west and a shallow jamb to the east. In the mid-18th century, two bays were added to the northwest. Around 1805, a two-storey, five-bay classical entrance front with a two-bay depth was added to the southeast, along with a matching tower designed to seamlessly transition the southwest front. Schoolrooms were added to the southeast by William Watherston & Sons between 1877 and 1880; further additions followed by Hay and Henderson in 1902, but these were subsequently removed during a major refurbishment by Hurd & Partners in 1965. The building now presents as a U-plan, a result of the various construction phases.

The exterior is constructed of rubble with ashlar dressings and harling applied in 1965. The southwest elevation, facing Orwell Place, displays the original three-bay front with a doorway featuring a cornice and an octagonal stair tower with an ogee roof. Windows are present on each floor, with smaller windows on the second floor set low under the eaves; chamfered arrises are a notable feature. An 18th-century extension with three storeys and two bays is sympathetically aligned to the northwest, with taller first-floor windows and a rebuilt five-bay jamb to the northeast (dating to 1965). A matching tower, likely built as a link, connects to the two-storey, two-bay return elevation of the 19th-century addition.

The southeast elevation, facing the schoolyard, is a two-storey structure with an attic and a five-bay entrance front, which is no longer in use as such, with regular window placement. An advanced, pedimented central bay is prominent, leading to a later corniced porch with windows on its returns. The outer right bay now incorporates a ground-floor doorway. To the east is a massive, incongruous three-storey block of painted brick schoolrooms. The rear elevation has been extensively altered and now faces a yard and an embankment supporting Caledonian Place.

The roof is pitched and plain to the north, while the 19th-century extension has a ponderous late 19th-century mansard roof with large segmental headed dormers – two to the southwest and four to the southeast. Windows are sash and case with small-pane glazing, with plate glass used in most of the south entrance front. Dressed and corniced chimney stacks are present, along with scrolled skewputts to the north.

Internally, the house has undergone considerable alteration, although some original features remain. The "King Charles Room," located within the original three front bays, features a heavily restored compartmentalised ceiling dated 1661, displaying emblems including the Honours of Scotland, a crowned saltire, and the initials of Charles II, created using molds also employed at Stenhouse, Merchiston Castle, and Gorgie House. A moulded fireplace is dated 1668, with a secondary carving of 1778 present twice. A front hall reveals an exposed line of an early 17th-century kitchen fireplace, with a brick oven surviving within the door jamb. A doorframe is visible on the inside of the earlier tower's northwest face. A section of eaves and skewputt from the original building remains exposed on the second floor outside the library. The 19th-century addition contains a plaster-panelled hall and staircase with a fine fan-vaulted cornice, and cast iron balusters alternating between anthemion and plain designs. Simple ceiling roses and cornices, moulded architraves, and panelled doors are also present.

The property is bordered by ironwork and lighting along Orwell Place, where a single stone course supports arrowhead cast-iron railings, flanked by a pair of cast-iron New Town gas lamps, now electrified.