Portobello 242 High Street, Edinburgh

This is a four-storey, eight-bay building of 1877, with later alterations, located on a corner site where Portobello High Street meets Marlborough Street in Edinburgh. It is a baronial-style tenement with shops at ground floor level on the Portobello High Street elevation. The building is constructed of stugged ashlar (a type of rough-faced stonework) with polished ashlar dressings, exhibiting moulded string courses that run between each floor, stepping over the windows, as well as an eaves course. The arrises, or edges, of the stonework have a stop-chamfered finish.

The south (principal) elevation features full-height, bipartite (two-part) windows, with machicolated corbels (projecting supports) in the two central bays and the outer left and right bays. A chamfered corner bay extends to the outer left. Windows are present on each floor, with the exception of those specifically noted. Square plaques are positioned between the first and second floors of the outer bays; a carved date stone monogram is on the outer left, while the outer right plaque is blank. A string course steps segmentally over a carved plaque positioned between the second and third bays. The ground floor features deep-set, panelled doors topped with plate glass rectangular fanlights in the third bay and to the right of the sixth bay.

The west (Marlborough Street) elevation, which is set on a sloping ground, has five bays. Shops occupy the first two bays of the right-hand side (number 2 Marlborough Street). Windows are present on each bay and floor, with some exceptions. Bays one to three feature a panelled door in the centre, above which is a plate glass, segmentally-arched fanlight and a moulded doorpiece with a stepped hoodmould and a carved plaque above. A full-height, bipartite window is in the outer left bay. Bipartite windows are in the third bay, alongside a panelled door to the right, which features a rectangular plate glass fanlight. The fourth and fifth bays slightly project with a rounded arris; these bays are broadly spaced, with a bipartite window in the fourth bay.

The windows are mostly plate glass timber sash and case windows, although some have been replaced with modern plastic and aluminium frames. Some original four-pane timber sash and case windows remain on certain floors of number 6 Marlborough Street. A grey slated mansard roof tops the building, and crowstepped gables (a detail of Scottish baronial architecture) appear on the outer left bay of the south elevation, the first and third bays of the west elevation, the second to third bays of the south elevation, the fifth bay of the west elevation, and on the remaining bays of the south elevation, each finished with finials. Gabled dormers are present on the first to third bays of the west elevation.

The interiors were not inspected during a 1994 survey.