Castle Terrace Car Park, Edinburgh

Castle Terrace Car Park is a large, open-deck, multi-storey car park built between 1959 and 1966. It was designed by T. Waller Marwick & Associates (consulting architects) and Kinnear & Gordon (consulting engineers), and constructed for the Edinburgh Corporation. The car park occupies a sloped embankment between Castle Terrace and King’s Stables Road, at the western foot of Edinburgh Castle Rock.

The building is oblong in plan with semi-circular ends and five decks arranged as two elongated, spiralled ramps accessible from the King's Stables Road elevation. The structure is primarily in-situ concrete, with parts of the exterior faced in snecked rubble. It currently operates as a public car park with a capacity of approximately 800 cars.

The two continuous ramps are gently sloped, incorporating parking spaces along their full length. The ribbed concrete deck slabs are supported by regularly spaced squared columns and have concrete safety upstands and painted steel railings. The ramps interconnect in the centre of the structure at each level. The bottom deck is excavated below street level on King’s Stables Road, with three suspended decks above. An additional suspended deck over the eastern half of the top deck accommodates level changes, allowing the top deck to merge with the pavement of Castle Terrace.

The main (northeast) elevation on King's Stables Road features two rectangular car entrance portals at the curved outer corners and a central pedestrian entrance portal. These openings, along with the lower walls, are faced with snecked rubble of Springwell stone, with ashlar copes and surrounds in Doddington stone. The curved northwest and southeast side elevations have external concrete steps linking Castle Terrace to King’s Stables Road. The southwest elevation is concealed by the embankment.

The interior is largely of exposed concrete. Three stairwells with open spiral staircases connect the five decks: a circular stairwell in the centre adjacent to the Castle Terrace pavement, and two semi-circular stairwells at the northwest and southeast ends. These staircases are concrete with painted steel railings. There are toilets located on the ground and first floors on the south-eastern side of the decks.

Along Castle Terrace, the car park has snecked rubble piers with ashlar coping.