18, 19, 20, 21 Market Street, Edinburgh

A substantial mixed-use complex on an irregular site in Edinburgh's historic Old Town, comprising buildings constructed in three distinct phases: the original Scots Baronial block by architects Peddie and Kinnear (1859–61), with later alterations and additions from around 1890, and a Modernist classical extension by Stewart Kaye (1928).

The principal structure is an asymmetrical 3-storey block with attic, dominated by a distinctive spired, gabletted octagonal corner tower with a conical-roofed tourelle to Market Street and an angle turret to Advocate's Close. The building features a 2-storey former boiler house adjoining to the rear with a crenellated parapet and bartizans to the north-east and north-west corners. A further 2- and 3-storey section with attic containing eight bays (the former printing works and offices) is stepped down to Advocate's Close.

The 1928 addition forms a 5-storey and attic Modernist classical corner block with a square-plan corner tower topped by a balustraded parapet, a gabled, canted bay to the south-west, and a broad dentilled cornice. The main building envelope employs squared and snecked stugged sandstone with polished dressings; the boiler house is bull-faced to Advocate's Close, while the 1928 block features polished ashlar with grey granite facing at ground floor level.

The north-east elevation (Cockburn Street) displays an angle turret corbelled to circular at first-floor level and to square at second floor, with a balustraded balcony and narrow gable to the attic featuring kneelered skews. Three 5-storey bays are regularly fenestrated with segmental gabled dormers to the attic. The octagonal corner tower incorporates a 2-leaf timber-panelled storm door with glazed inner door in a moulded timber surround, corbelled out to attic floor level, with finialled, bracketed, segmental pediments to windows in gablets and small timber lucarnes above.

The north-west elevation (Market Street) of the Peddie and Kinnear block shows a crowstep-gabled bay with apex stack and a 3-light mullioned window to the second floor, with a 2-leaf timber-panelled storm door in a timber moulded surround with small-pane glazed fanlight. A 2-storey fish-scale-slated tourelle with finials is corbelled out at the second-floor level.

The 1928 building's Market Street front features a slightly advanced 3-bay block incorporating an earlier altered and raised structure, with chamfered corners at first and second floors and a buckled band between ground and first floors. A broad eaves cornice and narrow recessed bay (the fourth from left) serves as the entrance and stair, with a 2-leaf timber-panelled storm door with plate glass fanlight and dated panel dated 1928 above. To the right, a broad 3-bay section displays a bracketed eaves cornice, stone-mullioned windows in chamfered recessed surrounds—tripartite to the centre, flanked by bipartites—with those between ground and first floors and between first and second floors divided by metal panels. A vehicular entrance adjoins to the left, with a later canopied entrance to the right.

The east elevation (to New Steps) comprises five bays with broad bracketed eaves cornice and balustraded parapet. Windows follow the same pattern as the Market Street elevation, with later alterations including a fire escape to the left.

The former boiler house features a corbel course to the parapet stepping up over second-floor windows, a bowed corner to the south-east corbelled to square at parapet level, timber doors at ground floor, and boarded windows at mezzanine level.

The west elevation to Advocate's Close is of squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone with a string course between ground and first floors. Chamfered window surrounds incorporate stone mullions to bipartites at first-floor level and dormers to the attic. A corniced doorpiece flanked by octagonal colonnettes and round-arched recesses features an inscription to the lintel, with the date 1882 and monograph "WC" above, rosettes to the cornice frieze, transoms and crowsteps to the dormer above.

Modern glazing appears at ground floor to the Peddie and Kinnear block; plate glass in timber sash and case windows is used above. The former boiler house retains 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows, with 8-pane to the printing works. The 1928 block employs metal-framed border-glazed windows. Grey slate roofs with corniced stacks topped by circular cans complete the composition.