John Knox's House, 45 High Street, Edinburgh

John Knox's House at 45 High Street, Edinburgh is a late 15th and 16th century tenement, extended in the later 16th and 17th centuries. It comprises a long, narrow structure of three storeys with basement (laigh floor) and attic, occupying the narrowed site of the old Netherbow Gate. The building combines an earlier backland tenement with a later foreland tenement fronting the High Street.

The most distinctive features are the jettied, painted 16th century galleries on the south and west elevations, and a canted corner bay with coursed sandstone and Renaissance detailing. The attic has gabled and jettied dormer bays to the south and west elevations (the southern dormer is mid-19th century). Ground floor shops are accessed via a forestair on the south side, dating from circa 1840. A gilded inscription appears on the entablature below a string course between ground and first floor levels. The rubble-built core features a crowstepped gable and corniced gable end stack. Fenestration is irregular throughout.

The west elevation of the High Street foreland has a single bay with two entrances at ground level below the jettied timber gallery. The timber boarded door to Hope's Close in the re-entrant angle is now blocked. Large windows occupy the first and second floors, with a small window at second floor left and a dormer above. The south elevation has three bays at ground level (a 17th century addition), with a forestair to the outer right. Two first floor doors at right angles sit within the timber gallery, with two large windows at first and second floors and a small stair window to the right.

The canted corner bay displays a first floor window to centre, framed by Doric-pilastered and corniced surround, surmounted by a pair of urn finials and central blind oculus. Flanking gilded wreaths appear on either side, with painted and gilded wreathed arms beneath the cill. A corner sundial features a figure pointing to the sun emerging from clouds. The north elevation of the backland is narrow and rubble-built, comprising a two-storey flat-roofed section at ground and laigh floor levels, with a segmental-arched first floor window, brick infill below the second floor window, and rendered third floor.

Timber sash and case multi-pane glazing is used throughout, though not original. The predominantly red pantiled pitched roofs are supplemented by grey slate to the rear. Coped random rubble stacks and a coped front stack, fitted with clay cans, support cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior is two rooms deep, with small foreland chambers contained within the south and west jettied galleries. The foreland section sits slightly higher than the backland. Original access was via a turnpike stair from ground level on the west side and from the south via a turnpike stair from the forestair at first floor level.

The laigh floor is accessed via a curved stone stair beneath the south gallery, originally accessible from the street. It contains a hearth with brick arch and stone jambs; the rear room contains a timber well stair. The ground floor features a heavy beamed ceiling and stone booths facing south onto the High Street, with chamfered openings and corbels supporting the timber gallery above.

The first floor contains a principal foreland room with a roll-moulded chimneypiece and Delft tiled hearth decorated with vases of flowers. The second floor comprises a timber panelled gallery chamber to the south, known as Knox's study, with a roll-moulded chimneypiece and Delft tiled hearth. The central panel of this hearth depicts the Last Supper. Above it hangs a large carved oak panel with smaller panels dated "31 OCTOBER" and "AD 1561".

The principal room on this floor features 16th century oak and pine arcaded panelling with a marquetry frieze and modillioned cornice. A beam and board ceiling carries early 17th century tempera decoration. A panelled door with marquetry insets opens onto a painting of Cain and Abel, dated circa 1640, which is fixed to the wall. A roll-moulded chimneypiece with Delft tiled hearth depicting landscape scenes is paired with a pilastered carved oak overmantel, its central tablet carved with flowers and a bird. Original oak floor boards remain. The backland room to the north, accessed through a barley-twist gate, has plaster walls and a plain beam and plaster ceiling. Its roll-moulded chimneypiece features Delft tiles depicting the Crucifixion. A stained glass Knox memorial window by James Ballantine was installed in 1853, and plain panelling by Hippolyte Jean Blanc was added in 1886.

The attic floor, now used as offices, contains timber doors with plain mouldings and a stair to the loft with hearth.