5 Mentone Avenue, Edinburgh

This is a group of three later 19th-century terraced villas, situated on a sloping site at 16 Bath Street, Edinburgh. The buildings are arranged over two storeys with an attic, and display a cottage style with simple barge-boarded gable ends and gabled bays to the front elevations. They are constructed of squared and snecked stugged ashlar with droved ashlar dressings, with brick and harl to the northeast (rear) elevation. A moulded cill course runs along the first floor, a moulded eaves course is present, and the arrises are stop-chamfered, with ogeed-arch detail above the first-floor windows.

The southwest elevation, facing Mentone Avenue, is an irregular grouping. The bays are disposed as 1-3-3-1-2-1, with a canted window on the corner of Bath Street and Mentone Avenue. Each bay generally has windows to both floors, except as noted. The left-hand bay (bay 1) is three-storey; a boarded door providing access to the rear of numbers 5 and 6 Mentone Avenue is located slightly left of centre on the ground floor, with a plate glass rectangular fanlight above. Bays 2 to 4 are two-storey, featuring bipartites at ground and first floor levels in bays 2 and 4. Bay 3 contains two modern panelled doors with plate glass rectangular fanlights above, sheltered by a timber-bracketed slate canopy porch, with a window above each door at the first floor. Bays 5 to 7 are situated on a lower ground level than bays 2 to 4, with bipartites to the ground floor in bays 5 and 7, and tripartites to the first floor in bays 5 and 7. A panelled door is present on the ground floor, in bay 6, with a plate glass rectangular fanlight above; the first floor above bay 6 is blank. Bays 8 and 9 are three-storey; bay 8 has a first floor level lower than adjacent bays and a second floor that breaks the eaves. A panelled door is present on the ground floor, and the cill course is stepped down to first floor level. Bay 9 is two-storey with two windows at ground and first floor. A full-height canted window is positioned at the corner, corbelled out above the eaves.

The southeast elevation, facing Bath Street, is two bays wide, excluding the corner canted window. A door with a plate glass rectangular fanlight is present at ground floor level in the left-hand bay, with a window at first floor. The bay to the right is three-storey, with the second floor breaking the eaves; it features bipartites on each floor.

The northeast elevation (rear) includes single-storey extensions to the rear of numbers 2-5 and the central bays of the group, as well as extensions to numbers 2-3 and 4-5.

The windows are timber sash and case, with two-pane upper sashes and plate glass lower sashes, with the exception of those in number 5. The roof is grey slate, pitched and including extensions to the rear. Gables have barge-boarding and king posts, present in all bays of the southwest and southeast elevations, except for bay 5 on the southwest elevation. Gabled dormers with barge-boarding and finials are situated between bays 2-3, 3-4, and at bay 5, between the corner canted window and bay 9. Ashlar stacks are present on the wallheads and mutual gables. A rendered and coped stack is shown in profile on the outer right of the southwest elevation, before the canted corner window. The interiors were not inspected in 1994. Boundary walls are constructed of stugged ashlar with coping to the southeast; on the southwest, mainly coping stone is visible.