Hydraulic Station, Prince Of Wales Dry Dock, Leith Docks, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 12 December 1974.
Hydraulic Station, Prince Of Wales Dry Dock, Leith Docks, Edinburgh
- WRENN ID
- lunar-chalk-harvest
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- City of Edinburgh
- Constituency
- Edinburgh North and Leith MP: Tracy Gilbert (Lab)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 12 December 1974
- OS grid reference
- NT 271 769
- Coordinates
- 55.97984, -3.16929
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Prince of Wales Graving Docks is a single-storey hydraulic station built between 1858 and 1863 by Sir A M Rendel, located at Leith Docks in Edinburgh. The building features an Italianate style with a squat square tower that has been rebuilt at the rear. It has been extended to the northwest and converted into offices. The structure is constructed of yellow brick with cream sandstone dressings, featuring a base course, an impost band course, and round-arched principal openings.
On the southwest elevation, which is the principal facade, there were originally three pedimented bays with keystoned openings in the center, a clock face above the pediment, and three-bay side wings topped with a cornice and tall parapet. A modern extension of four bays, designed to match the original style, has been added to the outer left.
The northeast elevation includes a large portion on the right that has been replaced with modern materials. To the left, there is an engaged square-plan two-stage tower featuring a keystoned doorway. The second stage has tall keystoned tripartite lancets above panelled aprons on each face, with overhanging bracketed eaves and a finialled pyramidal roof.
The northwest elevation consists of a modern extension with a central doorway and two single windows. The southeast elevation has three openings, with the central one bricked up. The building features modern small-pane timber windows with radial heads, a slate roof with a louvred ridge on the pedimented section, and modern cast-iron gutter heads.
Local climate
Hydraulic Station, Prince Of Wales Dry Dock, Leith Docks, Edinburgh sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 970 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 76% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 53% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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