Castle Terrace Car Park, Edinburgh

Castle Terrace Car Park is a large, open-deck, modern multi-storey car park, combining traditional materials with a functional exposed concrete form. Designed and built between 1959 and 1966 by Edinburgh's City Engineers, Kinnear & Gordon (consulting engineers) and T. Waller Marwick & Associates (consulting architects), it was commissioned by the Edinburgh Corporation. Located at the western foot of Edinburgh Castle Rock, the car park is set on a sloped embankment between Castle Terrace and King's Stables Road. Oblong in plan with semi-circular ends, it comprises five decks, which are arranged as two elongated spiralled ramps open to the King's Stables Road elevation. Built of in-situ concrete, parts of the exterior are faced in snecked rubble. It is currently in use as a public car park and has capacity for around 800 cars.

The two continuous ramped spirals are gently sloped and have parking spaces along their full length. The ribbed concrete deck slabs are carried on regularly spaced squared columns and are edged by concrete safety upstands and painted steel railings. The two ramps are interconnected in the centre of the structure, at each level. The excavated bottom deck sits below street level on King's Stables Road, with three suspended decks above. There is an additional suspended deck over the eastern half of the top deck. This accommodates changes between the street levels and allows the top deck to merge with the pavement of Castle Terrace.

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

The open interior of the car park is largely of exposed concrete. There are three stairwells with open spiral staircases that link the five decks of the car park: a circular stairwell in the centre of the car park by the pavement at Castle Terrace and two semi-circular stairwells at the northwest and southeast ends. The staircases are concrete with painted steel railings. There are toilets at the south-eastern side of the decks on the ground and first floors.

On Castle Terrace the car park is flanked by snecked rubble piers with ashlar coping.