16, 17 Union Place, Edinburgh

16-22 Picardy Place, Edinburgh

Robert Burn designed this classical palace block terraced tenement between 1803 and 1809. It comprises 38 bays across three storeys with a basement and attic, originally built as a symmetrical composition. The building is constructed in ashlar with rusticated ground floor, featuring a base course to the basement and band courses at ground, first and second floors, with a cill band at first floor level and an eaves cornice with blocking course.

The centrepiece at No 12 is a three-bay block emphasised by paired giant Ionic pilasters framing the bays, with single Ionic pilasters flanking a central three-bay element. This centre has a pedimented cornice at first-floor level and a three-bay Ionic pilastered and pedimented front. Ground floor entrances are set within round-arched recessed bays with cornices to first-floor windows. Ashlar steps and entrance platts oversail the basement where surviving.

Modern shopfronts have replaced the original ground floor at several locations: at 19A Broughton Street and Nos 2 and 10 Picardy Place; Nos 6 to 8 have a projecting shopfront installed by Dunn and Findlay in 1895. Nos 16-26 were gutted and reconstructed in 1973-75 with modern glazing at ground level. A two-leaf timber door with fanlight, flanked by windows in round-arched recesses, marks the principal entrance at the centre. Regular fenestration continues above with pedimented cornices.

The left side comprises a seven-bay block with projecting shopfronts, followed by three bays with modern cladding at ground and a decorative iron balcony spanning first-floor windows, and a further three-bay section with a timber door with fanlight in a round-arched recess. An outer five-bay section has modern and altered nineteenth-century shopfronts with a consoled pediment to a first-floor window at its centre.

To the right of centre, a fourteen-bay block contains timber doors with fanlights in round-arched recesses at bays 1, 6 and 7, with windows filling the former round-arched recesses and regular fenestration above including basement windows to each bay.

The Broughton Street elevation features a single bowed bay with shop windows at ground and regular fenestration above, topped by a canted dormer at attic level. Adjacent three bays include a well-preserved pilastered three-bay nineteenth-century shopfront with two-leaf panelled doors and anthemion-carved cornice, with regular fenestration above.

The Union Place elevation shows an entrance to the right at ground with a window in a bay to the left and regular fenestration above, with piended dormers at attic.

Broughton Street Lane Mews to the rear comprises several sections. Behind Nos 4-14 Picardy Place: a two-storey three-bay section in squared and snecked rubble with ashlar margins features an entrance with fanlight at ground flanked by two windows, basement window to the left and a ground-floor window above, topped by three gable-headed dormers breaking the eaves. An adjoining slightly lower mews has a central entrance with flanking windows and a single gable-headed dormer. Behind Nos 6-8, an eight-bay two-storey section of squared and snecked rubble with ashlar margins is much altered with garage entrances and windows at ground and blocked openings to three bays with windows to the remaining bays. Behind No 10, an altered three-storey red brick section has a garage entrance at ground with windows above. Behind No 12 (No 7 Broughton Street Lane), a two-storey three-bay rubble-built section has entrances in each bay at ground and three gable-headed dormers breaking the eaves. Behind No 14, a two-storey and attic three-bay section is much later altered.

Throughout, windows are timber sash and case with predominantly twelve-pane glazing, some with fifteen-pane and plate glass variants. Roofs are covered in grey slates, some raised as mansards to accommodate dormers. Cast-iron railings are present.

The interior was not examined at the time of survey in 1998.