31 Mortonhall Road, Edinburgh

This is a substantial Scottish 17th-century style villa, designed by John Kinross of Kinross and Tarbolton and built in 1898. The house is situated on a steeply sloping site. It is two storeys and has a basement, comprising three bays with a smaller, steeply pitched service block extending to the east. The exterior is constructed of rake-jointed rubble sandstone with ashlar dressings. Windows have roll-moulded surrounds, stop-chamfered at the cills, and are generously proportioned, particularly on the south elevation. The principal gables are crowstepped with decorative beak skewputts.

The north elevation has three two-storey bays, with an advanced single-storey, steeply pitched gabled service wing to the left. The central bay features a recessed, corniced doorway with a teak door and an armorial panel above. Windows are located to the right on the ground floor and in both bays on the first floor. A gabled bay to the far right has windows on both floors. A trapezoid pediment sits above the first-floor window, with a chamfered angle to the right, featuring small windows to both the ground and first floors, and a corbelled parapet with a blank panel above. The service wing to the left has an ashlar mullioned bipartite window and a blank space under the eaves.

The south elevation is three bays wide, featuring a full-height canted bay to the left which corbels to a square shape in the gablehead at the first floor. French windows provide access to the basement, with a large window above on the principal floor that incorporates a scroll-flanked panel over the cornice. This window encroaches slightly upon the first floor window and has a carved fleuron above. Two stair windows are centrally placed, with the upper window being larger. The bay to the right is advanced within a gabled panel, with windows on both floors. The principal floor window is detailed similarly to the left-hand bay, with a scroll-flanked panel and a fleuron above the first floor window.

The west elevation features a tall, lop-sided gabled bay to the left, which features an ogee panel carved into the chimney gablehead. There are three basement windows in the centre and two first-floor windows. The right-hand bay has a slightly advanced and shouldered chimneybreast with a wall-mounted sundial.

The east elevation is three bays wide, with an M-shaped gabled section bridged at the centre. The service block has an advanced gable to the right, with a door flanked by windows and a window in the gablehead. A door and window are present on the return to the south, and an oculus is set within the main house above. A window on each floor is located in the central bay, with moulded bridging at the wallhead. A window at the first floor is set in a corbelled panel to the left. Small-pane and multi-pane glazing patterns are used in the generous sash and case windows, and the roof is covered with Westmoreland slates and ashlar ridge tiles. Moulded coping is present to the gableheads and wallhead stacks.

The interior retains fine original decoration, including joinery work by Scott Morton & Co., decorative plasterwork cornices and ceiling details, built-in cupboards and display cabinets, and well-crafted oak dressers in the pantry.

Original boundary walls constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with saddleback ashlar coping, steps, gates, gate piers, and wrought-iron railings by Thomas Hadden are also part of the property. The boundary walls have panelled dies with moulded coping, and ashlar steps lead to the side elevations. The gate piers are corniced and panelled, and incorporate decorative wrought-iron railings.