Leith Hospital, 10 Mill Lane, Edinburgh

Leith Hospital is a complex of Grade B listed hospital buildings of varying dates and styles, located on Mill Lane and King Street in Edinburgh. The complex comprises multiple structures built between 1850 and 1941, mostly constructed in cream sandstone ashlar, with the nurses' home and its extension finished in harled stone with red sandstone dressings.

The Mill Lane block was designed by Peter Hamilton and dated 1850, then heightened in 1894. It is a 3-storey structure of 5 bays with a band course above the ground and first floors, and a band cill course at the second floor. It features an eaves cornice and blocking course, regular fenestration with bipartite windows to the centre bay, and a pedimented porte-cochere with paired columns at the centre, now partially obscured by modern infill. The windows are plate glass and timber sash and case. The building has a corniced wallhead and corner stacks.

The King Street corner block was designed by James Simpson and built 1873-5, with additions dating to 1888-9. It is 3-storey with basement, measuring 6 by 3 bays. A band course runs above the ground floor with a string course above the first floor. The first and second floors have band cill courses and a dividing cornice. The second floor, added 1888-9, features two centre bays to the north framed by pilasters, topped with a curved French roof with decorative iron brattishing and two bull's-eye dormers with elaborately carved surrounds. The fenestration is regular with 12-pane timber sash and case windows, some now blocked. The corner block has an eaves cornice and a tall ashlar parapet with panelled corner dies and prominent wallhead stacks to the east. Fine railings with decorative spearheads run along King Street.

The King Street Jubilee wing was designed by W N Thomson and dated 1897. It is 3-storey and 15 bays in length, with classically detailed design. A band course runs above the ground and first floors, with a band cill course at the first and second floors. An eaves cornice (dentilled to the south) caps the structure. The first, sixth/seventh, and tenth bays from the left are advanced and break the eaves in pediments—semicircular (broken by a pinnacle finial), segmental, and standard respectively. The first bay features a parapeted 2-storey canted window with transom lights and a decorative plaque commemorating Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee as an apron to the first floor window. Above this is a keystoned round-arched window at second floor level with swagged blind roundels. The sixth bay contains paired windows to each floor with a commemorative plaque above the first floor and a segmental-arched pediment. The tenth bay has a small later porch with round-arched windows above. The windows are small-pane glazing in timber sash and case, mostly with additional pivoted, small-pane upper panels.

The nurses' home was designed by W N Thomson and dated 1900, executed in Scottish 17th century style. It is 2-storey with the first floor breaking the eaves, comprising 7 bays. The building is harled with ashlar dressings and base course. An ashlar doorway with roll-moulded surround and flanking windows is located in the penultimate bay to the right, above which sits an elaborately carved heraldic dated panel and a bipartite dormer with semicircular carved pediment. Broad bays with crowstepped gables and canted windows at ground floor flank either side. Remaining bays have regular fenestration with finialled dormer windows featuring scroll-carved ornament to the coping, breaking the eaves. The building is roofed in red tile with coped sandstone ashlar stacks. A plain 4-storey, 9-bay extension was added by James Johnston 1939-41, en suite with the original materials and featuring a bell-cast piended roof. A doorway is flanked by canted windows with carved panels inscribed 'Prudence' and 'Fortitude' above the first floor windows of the centre bays. Windows throughout are small-pane timber sash and case.

The Taylor Gardens block was built as a war memorial by George Simpson 1923-7. It is 2-storey, symmetrical, 17 bays in length, with Tudorbethan details. The structure is ashlar construction with stone transoms to the principal elevation and some mullions. Three advanced centre bays feature ashlar mullioned and transomed windows divided by broad pilasters mounted with sculpted crests. A pierced parapet with a sculpted panel to the centre bay surmounts these bays, with an off-centre doorway to the left. Aprons to the first floor windows bear commemorative inscriptions relating to the First World War. Two gabled bays flank the centre with bipartite windows and carved panels to the gableheads. The outer bays have regular fenestration and tall ashlar parapets. Gable elevations have apex stacks rising from carved, corbelled panels. Windows are a mix of plate glass and 2-pane modern replacements. Decorative gates and wrought- and cast-iron railings frame the Taylor Gardens elevation.

Associated with the complex is a red engineering brick chimney stack of tapering circular section, with a moulded neck and steel tie-rings, sited by the King Street corner block. The stack rises from red brick and harled service blocks of a single storey.

The interior was not seen during the 1993 survey. The interior details remain undocumented.