1 John Street, Portobello, Edinburgh

1 John Street in Portobello, Edinburgh, is an earlier 19th-century classical house with later additions and alterations. It is a two-storey, three-by-five bay structure with a square plan, located on a corner site. The building features polished ashlar on the front, while the rear is constructed from roughly squared rubble with ashlar dressings. Notable architectural details include a base course, a dividing band course, a panelled apron, and a cill course at the first floor, along with a cornice and blocking course.

The northwest elevation facing John Street is symmetrically composed with five bays arranged in a 1-3-1 grouping. At the center, there is a four-panelled door with a plate glass fanlight above it, flanked by blinded windows on each storey and additional windows in the outer bays at both the ground and first floors.

The southwest elevation on Abercorn Street is also symmetrical, featuring three bays. It has a four-panelled door at the center, similar to the John Street elevation, with windows above and in the flanking bays. To the right, there is a modern single-storey extension clad in bull-faced stone.

The northeast elevation consists of three bays, with the right bay being blank and windows present in the centre and left bays on each floor. The southeast elevation is not fully visible, but it includes a later lean-to single-storey addition at the ground level.

The building has 12-paned timber sash and case windows and is topped with graded slates on a U-plan roof, which creates a gully at the rear. There are two wallhead and coped stacks symmetrically positioned relative to the John Street elevation, as well as two additional stacks at the rear.

The interior was not seen in 1994. The boundary walls are made of droved ashlar with coping, which is now partly rendered, and were formerly topped with railings.