97-99 High Street, Edinburgh

James Smith of Whitehill, circa 1700, and Robert Paterson, 1862. Symmetrical 4-storey 5-bay Scots Baronial tenement replacing front range of partially collapsed tenement by James Smith (see Notes). Central pend to Paisley Close; dividing stair to outer left (leads to 107 High Street, listed separately). Crowstepped wallhead gable with corbelled apex stack; canted 1st floor oriel. Squared and snecked stugged sandstone (painted ground and 1st floors); polished dressings. 6-storey tenement to rear is surviving part of Smith's tenement, with later alterations. Random rubble; raised ashlar margins; long and short quoins.

S (HIGH STREET) ELEVATION: flanking 3-bay shopfronts at ground (those at right with original shouldered openings) with continuous cornice. Stair to outer left within rope-moulded round-arched surround, with decorative cast-iron hand-rail and balustrade. Keystone of round-arched pend to Paisley Close carved with portrait head of a boy; inscribed scroll (see Notes); foliate carving on corbelling of oriel above, with rope-moulded cill and machicolated, crenellated parapet. Flanking windows in 1-2 2-1 formation. Moulded stepped string course above 2nd floor windows. Upper floors regularly fenestrated with stop-chamfered, roll-moulded surrounds

N (REAR) ELEVATION: 4-storey and basement to small courtyard; irregular fenestration; small corbelled bowed oriel with pointed-arched window. Random coursed rubble; ashlar margins and raised cills; stone relieving arches to lower windows.

BLOCK TO REAR: 6 storeys including basement but reduced in height. 3 evenly-spaced bays to E elevation; 2 bays to W (small paired stair windows to each floor plus larger single window); rebuilt forestair in left bay; timber panelled door to rear at forestair (17th century in style only); small adjoining slated outbuilding, 1977; shop at ground entered below blocked (late 18th/early 19th century slapping) wide segmental-arch. N elevation with several irregularly spaced blocked openings; evidence of 2 sections or building phases.

Plate glass windows to shops; later leaded glazing with pointed-arched astragals to 1st floor; replacement timber sash and case windows to 2nd and 3rd floors above in keeping with originals (2-pane upper sashes, 4-pane lower); 12-pane replacement timber sash and case glazing to rear. Pitched grey slate roofs; coped wallhead and end stacks; circular clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: part seen 2002. 1st floor of Paterson's tenement: recessed windows with painted timber panelling; Baronial-style chimneypiece (inscribed 'UBI BENE IBI DATRIA'). Smith's block has scale and platt stone close stair with half-columns; treads re-levelled in concrete and linoleum. (Stairs to attic may still retain original worn stone steps with bottle nosings.)