South Lothian College Of Nursing, 2 Gillsland Road South, Edinburgh

The South Lothian College of Nursing, located at 2 Gillsland Road South, Edinburgh, is a substantial villa dating to 1898, designed by Professor Frank Worthington Simon. Built in an asymmetrical style with Scottish Renaissance details, the building is composed of two main stories and an attic, accompanied by a single-story service wing to the rear.

The villa is constructed from variegated squared and snecked rubble, with dressings of polished red sandstone. Features include a base course, eaves cornice, rounded reveals, a moulded cill course at the first floor on the northwest and northeastern elevations, and ashlar mullions.

The northeastern (entrance) elevation has four bays. A prominent bay to the left breaks the eaves, framed by strip pilasters rising from corbels, with rose carvings flanking a roll-moulded, keystoned round-arched doorway. The doorway has an egg and dart cornice, a panelled door, a semi-circular plate glass fanlight with a dentilled cornice, and carved roses in the spandrels. A moulded panel above the doorway bears an armorial crest. A single window is positioned above the doorway, while a gable with a tripartite dormer window sits above that. To the right of the centre bay is a bipartite window at ground floor and a single window at first floor. A further bay to the outer right features a bowed ashlar bay at ground floor with a finialled ogival leaded roof and a stepped string course. The bay to the outer left incorporates an out-of-line bipartite window with a rubble relieving arch at ground floor, and an out-of-line single window at first floor.

The northwestern (Colinton Road) elevation, with three bays, includes an advanced gabled bay to the right with a two-story canted window and a scalloped parapet with ball finials. A tripartite window is set within the gablehead, and a decorative shaft rises into a finial. The central bay of this elevation provides single windows at ground and first floor levels. The bay to the left displays a bipartite window with a rubble relieving arch at ground floor and a tripartite window at first floor. A canted dormer is visible on the roof.

The southeastern (rear) elevation features three bays. The central bay has two small ground floor windows, a tripartite first floor window with a rubble relieving arch, and wallhead breaks with a small tripartite and single window. A blank bay to the right has a tall, shouldered wallhead stack linked to the roof. The left bay contains single windows to the ground and first floors, alongside a single-story service wing with a half-piend roof, single windows in the end wall, a secondary door, small flanking windows on the southwest return, and a bipartite window and tripartite attic window on the northeast return.

The southwestern elevation has two central windows at ground and first floor levels, as well as two shouldered wallhead stacks.

The windows are timber sash and case, combining six- and four-pane upper sashes with plate glass and two-pane lower sashes, with some small-pane windows to the rear. The roof is green slate, piend and platformed, with three wallhead stacks, one central. Moulded eaves gutters and gutterheads are also present.

The interior was not inspected in 1992.

The rear and southwest boundaries are defined by a tall rubble wall with semi-circular coping, and a low rubble wall with saddleback coping to the front and northwest.