Royal Blind Asylum And School, West Savile Road, Newington, Edinburgh

The Royal Blind Asylum and School, located on West Savile Road in Newington, Edinburgh, was designed by Charles Leadbetter and built in 1874. Later additions and alterations occurred in the 20th century, with a further extension added in the 1960s and a recent glazed extension to the rear.

The building is a three-story and attic former asylum constructed in a French style, featuring a central entrance tower flanked by wings. It is built of squared and snecked cream rubble sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. The design includes a base course, dividing bands above the ground and first floors, cills to the first-floor windows, an eaves course, and a decorative cornice.

The south (entrance) elevation showcases a four-stage circular entrance tower connecting to four-bay linking blocks and advanced terminal blocks. The tower has a central porch with a round-arched doorway, a two-leaf panelled door, a plate glass fanlight, slender engaged columns, and a carved heraldic panel depicting a rampant lion and unicorn above the door. It also features single windows at different levels, including round-arched windows with carved floral garlands. The linking blocks have a regular fenestration pattern with pitched roof dormers. The terminal blocks have tripartite windows on the ground and first floors, bipartite windows on the second floor, and dormers with round-arched pediments.

The east elevation is five bays wide, with the three central bays projecting forward. It features bipartite windows on the ground, first, and second floors, and a tripartite window in a mansard gable to the central bays, with pedimented dormers on the outer bays.

The windows are modern plate glass PVCu pivot windows. The roof is covered in grey slate with corniced ridge stacks.

The interior was completely remodelled and has no surviving original features.

Low coped boundary walls and replacement railings are present along the street.

A gate lodge, situated at Craigmillar Park, is a single-story, irregular-plan structure with a circular entrance tower to the northeast angle. It is constructed of cream sandstone squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings, featuring a base course, a heraldic panel above the doorway, an eaves course, and a cornice. The fenestration is irregular. It has four-pane timber sash and case windows, a grey slate pitched roof, fish scale slating to the conical roof, and a corniced wallhead stack. The interior of the gate lodge was not inspected in 1996.