5 White Horse Close, Canongate, Edinburgh

9 White Horse Close, located at 8 Canongate in Edinburgh, has origins dating back to the 17th century. It was restored and reconstructed in 1889 by James Jeerdan and again in 1964-1965 by Sir Frank Mears and Partners. This building is part of a unified group of irregularly composed dwellings designed in a picturesque Scots-Revival style, arranged around a tapering quadrangle. The exterior features a mix of exposed and harled rubble with ashlar dressings, predominantly showcasing raised cills, architraves, and chamfered margins. A pend leads south to Nos 23-33 Canongate.

The northeast elevation includes a bi-furcated forestair that leads to flanking jettied timber and plaster gables with bowed fronts. There is a pedimented dormer above the forestair, featuring a datestone marked '1623'. The arrangement of doors and windows is irregular throughout. The right corner has a crowstepped wallhead gable, and below it is a two-storey outshot in the re-entrant angle. The east elevation has an advanced crowstepped gable at the center with a right-angled forestair to the right. There is a round-arched pediment above the ground floor window on the far right. The south elevation shows a series of outshots that step towards the pend, with a pantiled single-storey section in the center. The west elevation features a unified run of harled two-storey dwellings (Nos 2-5).

Nos 23-33 Canongate consists of a three-storey and attic building with a segmental-arched arcaded ground floor, highlighted by a rounded central arch. The eastern section is three-bay and recessed, with a timbered steeply pitched gable in the attic. There is a shop on the ground floor and an oriel window at the re-entrant angle to the left. The Canongate elevation is finished with grey Scottish slate, while the properties on White Horse Close are topped with red pantiles. The building features harled and exposed red brick end and axial stacks, along with clay cans.