157 Colinton Road, Edinburgh

159 Colinton Road in Edinburgh is a double villa built around 1890 by James Gowans. It is a two-storey, four-bay structure with a square plan and an extension at the rear. The building features yellow sandstone, squared and coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, raised droved ashlar quoins, band courses above the ground floor and at the wallhead eaves, chamfered reveals, and heavily coped triangular dormer heads with ashlar block brackets.

The northwest (front) elevation is symmetrical, with advanced central bays that include panelled entrance doors flanked by narrow sidelights and rectangular plate glass fanlights. Ornamental stone brackets support a linked hoodmould arching over the doors. There are two windows breaking the eaves at the first floor, and a central wallhead stack that is corbelled at the first floor from a triangular corbel. The outer bays feature two-storey canted windows that also break the eaves, topped with pyramidal roofs.

On the southeast (rear) elevation, there are two windows in the inner bays at the ground floor and two windows above that break the eaves. A central wallhead stack is present, along with a two-bay, one-and-a-half storey T-plan extension that has splayed corners facing the main block. This extension has one window per bay, narrow windows under the eaves above, and a hipped roof.

The southwest and northeast elevations are identical, each with three bays and one window per bay on both floors, with first-floor windows breaking the eaves. There are two wallhead stacks corbelled at the first floor from a triangular corbel flanking the central dormer head. The stacks are linked by a dormer with a stone front, featuring an ashlar mullioned bipartite window at the front and single windows on the sides. The villa has timber sash and case windows with 12-pane upper sashes, some of which have small-pane borders that may have previously contained stained glass insets. The lower sashes are two-pane. The sidelights to the doors contain small rectangular panes of coloured glass. The roof is a combination of piend and platform styles, with a green slate covering, lead flashings, and two polygonal cupolas on the platform. There are four corniced wallhead stacks, some of which have been altered, and moulded cast-iron eaves gutters.

The interiors were not seen in 1992. A coped rubble boundary wall runs along the southwest and northwest sides, stepping down towards the front, with some decorative cast-iron railings and a gate remaining at No. 157.