55 Dick Place, Edinburgh

55 Dick Place is a two-storey, three-bay villa built in 1862 by R Thornton Shiells. It is a symmetrical rectangular design with a service wing to the rear. The villa is constructed of stugged, squared, and snecked contrasting sandstones, with cream polished ashlar window dressings featuring droved margins and chamfered reveals. The ground floor windows have pink relieving arches, and the first floor windows have steep piended dormerheads. A bargeboarded timber porch is located at the principal elevation, flanked by single-storey engaged columns with carved capitals.

The south (entrance) elevation features a steeply pitched, gabled timber porch supported by four detached timber piers, with curvilinear bargeboards and contrasting bands of purple and green fishscale slates. A Tudor-arched, architraved doorway leads to a panelled door, which is topped by a plate glass fanlight. A single window breaks the eaves above, with a shouldered-arched, corbelled hood. Bipartite windows are at ground floor level, flanking the centre to the right and left, with disengaged column-mullions and foliate capitals (single windows within the bipartite openings). Single windows are above at the first floor, also breaking the eaves with piend-roofed dormerheads.

The east elevation features a single window breaking the eaves. The west elevation has a single window at ground floor and another breaking the eaves. The north elevation comprises a single-storey, piend-roofed service wing adjoining to the outer right; single windows to the north and west returns, and a secondary entrance to the east return. A small window flanks the centre to the left, above which are two round-arched stair windows. A single window is located at ground floor to the outer left.

Plate glass sash and case windows are used on the south elevation, while the remaining windows have 12-pane, 8-pane, and 4-pane glazing. The roof is purple slate, with fishscale banding, lead flashing, and wallhead stacks with sawtooth coping to the east and west, and a separate wallhead stack to the north.

The interior features an encaustic tiled vestibule, a glass-panelled vestibule door, ornate plaster cornices, timber fireplaces in the principal rooms, a cast-iron balustrade with an oak handrail, and twin painted stair windows deeply set within architraved, round-arched openings with decorative floral impost blocks.

A low retaining wall runs along the street, rising to the east and west, with remnants of an iron railing featuring star-shaped castings at the pedestrian gateway. High mutual boundary walls complete the setting.