53-61 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh

53-61 Shandwick Place is a three-storey and attic, seven-bay Art Deco shop designed by Reid & Forbes in 1937, featuring Jazz Modern details. The ground floor is finished in polished black granite, while the first floor has channelled sandstone ashlar, and the upper floors are clad in polished sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. A coped cill course runs above the shop fascia between the ground and first floors, with zigzag moulded cills on the second-floor windows. A band course continues as transoms and forms a curvilinear hood over the central bay at the second floor. There is a cornice below a coped blocking course at the second floor, and stylised brackets support a centred, bowed steel balustrade. The first floor features moulded margins spanning triple grouped windows.

On the northwest (principal) elevation, modern shop windows are present at the ground floor, with a recessed modern entrance offset to the left. Wrought iron shutters adorn the canopied V-canted window at the centre of the first floor, flanked by stylised polygonal shafts. Above, a small window with a moulded surround and an ornamental fleur-de-lys apron is located at the centre of the second floor. The first floor has three slightly recessed windows on either side of the central bay, while the second floor features three closely spaced windows flanking the central bay. The mansard roof above has six evenly disposed corniced box dormers.

The southwest and northeast elevations are obscured by adjoining buildings, and the southeast elevation was not visible in 2000. The shop windows at the ground floor are accompanied by aluminium-framed casement windows on the first and second floors, while the dormers have sash and case windows. The roof is covered in grey slate with coped skews. The interior is fitted as a modern shop at the ground floor, with the rest of the interior remaining unseen.