Courtyard Fountain, Nurses Home, Royal Infirmary, Lauriston Place, Edinburgh

This is a courtyard fountain located within the Nurses Home, part of the former Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place, Edinburgh. The Nurses Home, designed by Sydney Mitchell and Wilson, was constructed between 1890 and 1892. It is a single-storey and attic Queen Anne style building arranged as a quadrangle, with a two-storey pedimented central block and mansard-roofed corner pavilions. The building is constructed primarily of red "pressed" brick with yellow ashlar dressings and decorative banding, featuring swept bracketed eaves. Decorative lanterns and ventilators are present on all pavilions.

The west-facing principal elevation features an advanced, gabled three-bay central block with a scrolled, curvilinear pediment. The entrance is located in a single-storey canted bay with a modern two-leaf door flanked by narrow windows, above which are five small windows. Further narrow windows with circular blind openings are positioned over the outer bays and returns at ground floor level. A Serliana (a semi-circular window surrounded by smaller arched windows) is set at first-floor level, flanked by smaller windows. The gable features two small windows with a panel above. Recessed four-bay linking ranges are present, with decorative gabled dormers breaking the eaves in the three inner bays. The outer bays are slightly advanced and have flat roofs, with doors to the ground floor and tripartite stone mullioned and transomed windows above. The square corner pavilions have four small windows to both the ground and first floors.

The north, east, and south elevations are similar, with a pedimented advanced centre block, stone mullioned bipartite windows to the ground and first floors, a circular opening in the gable, and splayed corners. Ground floor windows of the outer recessed bays are present, and stone mullioned bipartite windows feature on the ground and first floors of the corner pavilions. A foliate carved plaque above the garden entrance to the east is dated 1891.

The central courtyard houses a two-tier cast-iron fountain, complete with dolphins and other decorative elements, set within a composite stone basin. The courtyard itself is of plain brick with yellow ashlar lintels.

The interior of the entrance foyer, now a shop, features a compartmented ceiling. Small leaded panes with stained glass are found on the overdoors of several rooms.

A pitched-roofed, L-shaped conservatory, built with red brick lower walls and French doors leading to the garden to the south, connects with a corridor to the former George Watson's Hospital building to the northeast.

The windows throughout are primarily timber sash and case with six-pane upper sashes and two-pane lower sashes. The roof is covered in greenish slates with terracotta ridging tiles. Brick chimneys have ashlar mouldings and cornices, topped with circular cans. Cast-iron downpipes are fitted with urn-shaped hoppers.