Lammerburn, 10 Napier Road, Edinburgh

Lammerburn, 10 Napier Road, Edinburgh

A 2-storey American stick-style villa designed by James Gowans and dated 1859, with later alterations executed in the same style. The building is constructed of cyclopean rubble and quartz from different quarries, divided into a grid of strips by raised bull-faced bands and vertical panels and dressings of grey sandstone. Bull-faced banded mullions, timber brackets mounted on bull-faced corbels to gables and dormerheads, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters, and a battered base to the garden elevations are key external features. The stacks are banded with gabled canopies.

The south-east entrance elevation is of 4 bays. A broad advanced gabled entrance bay stands left of centre, flanked by narrower recessed gabled bays. The doorway is off-centre, flanked by a narrow single window to the right and a tripartite window to the left, both beneath a common polished ashlar lintel and hoodmould. The entrance itself is tiled with a panelled door. Above at first floor is a stepped quadripartite window under a corbelled gableline. Two carved tablets with entwined letters MS appear to the left, with the date 1859 to the right in a raised section of the gablehead. The bay to the right of centre incorporates a projecting ground floor addition with a lean-to roof and cast-iron brattishing at the corner, formed with a further recessed bay to the outer right. This section contains three narrow ground floor windows, the centre one with a gabled dormerhead, and a stepped tripartite window at first floor. The outer left bay has a canted window at ground floor beneath a half-piend roof, with a single first floor window having a shaped triangular head and gablet hoodmould. The outer right bay contains a bipartite ground floor window and a small single first floor window to the right, with a further single window to the left breaking the eaves in a gabled dormerhead.

The south-west elevation fronting Napier Road comprises 2 bays. The advanced gabled bay to the left has a tripartite window at ground floor with a shaped triangular head to the central light, and at first floor a quadripartite window under the gable with canted central lights as part of a diamond canted wall plane on a single carved corbel rising through the gable to a projecting gablehead. The bay to the right contains a tripartite ground floor window with carved corbels carrying a stone slate canopy, and a transomed tripartite first floor window breaking the eaves in a gabled dormerhead.

The north-west elevation facing Spylaw Road is of 4 bays. The two advanced bays to the left have a single ground floor window to the left, a bipartite ground floor window to the right, and a central shouldered wall head stack corbelled above ground floor. A gabled return elevation with a single gabled first floor window projects from these bays. The bays to the right contain a stepped tripartite ground floor window with individual stone slate canopies to the left, and a single round-arched first floor window breaking the eaves in a gabled dormerhead. The advanced broad bay to the right features a 2-storey canted window flanked by single windows, with carved corbels carrying stone slate hoods to the ground floor windows, and a gable over a central bipartite first floor window.

The north-east rear elevation comprises 2 bays. A single-storey rendered concrete wash house of later date stands to the right, echoing the masonry pattern of the main house and topped by a mansard roof. An advanced gabled bay to the right has a single gabled first floor window, with a single ground floor window on the return and a single first floor window breaking the eaves in a gabled dormerhead. A gabled bay to the left contains two small blocked-up windows at first floor.

The roof is of Scottish slate with lead flashings. Windows are timber sash and case, some with plate glass glazing, some with 4-pane sashes, while the original windows to the north-west elevation have 8-pane sashes of perfect squares. Stacks include one cross-sectioned stack and one drum stack to the south-west, a transverse ridge stack to the north-east, and a wall head stack. Moulded gutterheads and brackets are present throughout.

Interior features include a tiled hall; roll-moulded door cases; doors, window shutters and surrounds of deeply moulded square panels; and a stone stair with turned timber balustrade and pendants. A skylight above the stair features a characteristic cornice with brackets. The ground floor dining room has an elaborate bracketed cornice and marble fireplace with a carved timber surround of pilasters with fluted tapering heads and roundels carved with heads. The first floor drawing room has a coved ceiling with bands of octagonal mouldings, an octagonal cornice with a twisted band, and characteristic corbelled detail over the bay window.

A boundary wall and gatepiers complete the setting. The rear and north-west walls are of cyclopean rubble with flat bull-faced coping, while the south-west wall is of low rubble. The square rubble gatepiers have a grid of polished ashlar bands and battered base, with corbelled stepped coping. Cast-iron gates and railings complete the boundary features. A single-storey detached garage and shed stand to the north-east.