18 Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh

18 Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh

A substantial classical terrace designed by James Gillespie Graham in 1822. The main building comprises a 23-bay composition in polished ashlar sandstone, arranged as a 15-bay terrace flanked by a pair of advanced 4-bay terminal pavilions, rising 3 storeys with attic and basement.

The principal elevation facing northwest displays refined detailing throughout. V-jointed rustication marks the principal floor, with a base course, band course between basement and principal floor, and cill courses at the first and second floors. A cornice and blocking course crowns the third floor. Five 3-bay tenements make up the central terrace, each with a door set at principal floor level in the right-hand bay. These doors vary in design: a 6-panel timber door with glazed upper panels and plate glass rectangular fanlight serves No 10; 6-panel timber doors with plate glass rectangular fanlights serve Nos 12 and 14; and 2-leaf 4-panel timber doors with rectilinear rectangular fanlights serve Nos 16 and 18. The remaining bays contain regularly spaced windows. Those at the first floor are architraved with cornices, while second and third floor windows are architraved only. Ashlar steps and entrance platts overspill into the flagged basement areas.

The pair of terminal pavilions at either end display more elaborate articulation. Doric pilasters flank the bays at first and second floor levels, with panelled pilasters at the third floor. Each pavilion contains a 4-panel timber door with a radial semicircular fanlight set in the penultimate bay from the inner edge at principal floor level (blind at Nos 8 and 20). The remaining principal floor bays feature windows set in round-arched recesses. Blind windows appear at the outer left at first and second floors of No 8, and at the outer right at all floors of No 20.

Throughout the building, timber sash and case windows of varied designs are employed. Anthemion and palmette window guards ornament the bays at first floor level, except in the bays to the left of centre at No 8 and right of centre at No 20. The roof is covered in grey slate with full-width slate-fronted box dormers to No 10, polygonal piended dormers to Nos 12, 14 and 16, and box dormers to No 18. Cast-iron rainwater goods and broached ashlar ridge stacks with coped tops and circular cans complete the roofline. The basement and principal levels are enclosed by ashlar copes surmounted by cast-iron railings with fleur-de-lis finials.

The building returns to Ainslie Place form part of 16 Ainslie Place (separately listed), and the Randolph Crescent return forms part of 8 Randolph Crescent (separately listed). Evidence of working panelled shutters survives in the interior, though detailed inspection has not been undertaken.

Associated with the main building is a mews structure at 13 Randolph Lane, built in the earlier 19th century. This is a 2-storey, 3-bay building of coursed rubble with broached ashlar dressings and raised cills. The principal elevation facing southeast contains three 2-leaf vertically-boarded garage doors at ground level, with the pair to the left sharing a stone lintel, the central opening fitted with pairs of square glazed upper panels, and the right opening with pairs of rectangular glazed upper panels. First floor windows are irregularly spaced. A single-storey double garage addition adjoins to the right. The northeast elevation is predominantly blank, with a single-storey double garage addition at ground level. The mews building features timber sash and case windows of various types, a grey slate roof, cast-iron rainwater goods, a droved ashlar gablehead stack with coped top and circular cans, and coped skews.