Rabbit Hall, 18 Brunstane Road North, Portobello, Edinburgh

Rabbit Hall, a Grade B listed building on the corner of Promenade and Brunstane Road North in Portobello, Edinburgh, is a 2-storey French-Gothic style villa designed by J C Walker between 1865 and 1868. The building has undergone later alterations and additions, including work undertaken after the death of William Hay in 1888.

The main structure is constructed of lightly tooled sandstone with polished dressings, while the rear elevations to the south-east and south-west are built of squared and snecked sandstone. A base course runs around the building.

The north-west entrance elevation features 3 irregularly disposed bays, each with windows to both floors. The centrepiece is a panelled door with a rectangular plate glass fanlight above, set within a moulded architraved doorpiece. Above the door sits a date stone inscribed "AD 1865" with monograms and a hoodmould. A narrow first-floor window above the door is set above a corbelled ashlar balcony with a cast-iron window guard. The bay to the right is slightly advanced and gabled, with a round-arched window set into the gablehead. A later addition to the left features a red sandstone bipartite full-height window with a moulded string course between ground and first floor levels, moulded cill course to the first floor, and a balustraded wallhead parapet. Profile cast-iron guttering with cast-iron brackets and a French pavilion roof crown this elevation.

The north-east elevation facing the Promenade comprises 2 bays. The bay to the right is slightly advanced and gabled, with a 2-storey canted window divided by a moulded string course and topped by a swept piended roof with cast-iron brattishing and a round-arched window in the gablehead. The bay to the left features a full-height canted window, squared at ground level and canted at first floor with a semi-hexagonal roof decorated with fish-scale banding. Cast-iron profile guttering with brackets runs along the eaves.

The south-west elevation has a projecting 2-storey bay to the centre, a conservatory with an original vine growing inside to the left, and single-storey outbuildings added to a gabled bay on the right.

The south-east elevation includes a later 2-storey gabled addition to the centre, a lean-to single-storey addition to the left, and a slightly advanced bay to the right.

Windows throughout are plate glass timber sash and case. The complex roof comprises intersecting pitched sections in grey slate, with French pavilion roofs featuring banded diamond and fish-scale slates and decorative wrought-iron brattishing. Timber dormers sit on the north-west and north-east elevations. A flat roof covers the later addition to the north-west elevation bay, while a jerkin head roof dormer with a round-arched window sits above the bay to the left. Coped ashlar chimney stacks sit at the gablehead to the south-west, along the ridge to the north-east, and at the wallhead to the south-east.

The interior retains significant original features. The hall and vestibule are paved with encaustic tiles incorporating the family coat of arms as a motif. A fine etched and painted glass round-arched window, possibly from Whitby, lights the staircase. Cast-iron barley sugar balusters remain in place on the stairs. Decorative plaster cornices in high relief run throughout most of the building, except in the later addition to the north-west elevation. Most original chimneypieces remain in situ, though many are now boarded up. The sitting room (formerly dining room) retains an original veined black chimneypiece, while the drawing room features an original white marble chimneypiece of grander design, complete with a cast-iron segmental-arched and ornamental tiled grate, now fronted by a modern gas fire.

The boundary walls are of sandstone with coping. The north-west wall formerly carried railings. Tall squared and snecked sandstone walls with rounded coping bound the property, incorporating a later entrance to a modern garage on the north-west side. A modern timber gate with a reused decorative cast-iron panel provides a pedestrian entrance on the north-east side.

Outbuildings include a squared and snecked sandstone laundry to the south-east of the present garden with a lean-to roof, and single-storey additions to the south-west, formerly comprising a coal shed, hen house, and duck house.

Architectural fragments possibly from St Giles, High Street, are located within the garden.