9 Polwarth Terrace, Edinburgh

Circa 1873, 9 Polwarth Terrace is an asymmetrical, cottage-style Gothic villa with a single-storey side wing. It is built of cream sandstone, with squared and snecked rubble walls and dressed ashlar margins. The windows have stop-chamfered reveals, ashlar mullions, and bargeboarded gables and dormers featuring pierced trefoils and pendants, with exposed rafters.

The north-west (entrance) elevation has an open timber balustrade verandah to the left, with centre bays featuring a lean-to roof and a gabled entrance porch. A rubble-built vestibule with a bipartite window is to the right of the verandah. At ground floor, there are two single windows to the right, and a stair window is placed asymmetrically. The first floor has two windows to the left and a canted feature breaking the eaves in gabled dormerheads. A shouldered wallhead stack is also present. The side wing to the right has a bipartite and a single window at ground floor, and a first floor bipartite window breaking the eaves with a segmental-arched head and an incised lintel containing a blank roundel.

The north-east (East Castle Road) elevation, with just two bays, features an advanced, canted bay that sweeps to a square in the gablehead, containing a pointed-arch tripartite window. Flanking the bay at ground floor are single, shouldered-arch windows. A tripartite window is positioned at first floor under a relieving arch with an incised lintel and blank rounds. A small bipartite window is in the gablehead. A rectangular projecting bay to the right has a triangular-headed quadripartite window at ground floor. A parapet with arched dies (likely former gatepier copings) and cast-iron brattishing is present, along with a bipartite window breaking the eaves in a gabled dormerhead at first floor.

The south-west elevation shows the side wing with a piend and platformed roof. A tall, shouldered, scroll-flanked wallhead stack is to the left of the main elevation. A gabled bay to the right demonstrates a bipartite window at first floor, a small bipartite window in the gablehead, and a wallhead stack to the left pitch.

The south-east (rear) elevation is three bays wide, with a corniced timber doorpiece above a secondary door in the central bay. A single window is to the right, and a bipartite window to the left. A modern single-storey extension is connected to the side wing.

The building retains timber sash and case windows with mostly plate glass glazing; some four-pane windows are to the rear and side. The roof is steep and slate, with piend and platform sections. There are four wallhead stacks, several modern Velux windows and some octagonal cans. The interior was not inspected in 1992.

A tall rubble boundary wall with semi-circular coping lines the rear and side, with a low rubble wall to the front, finished with saddleback coping and a cast-iron gate.