Craigard, 37 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh

Craigard is a villa dating from around 1875, situated at 37 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh. It is a two-storey, three-bay rectangular building with a single-storey and attic service wing extending to the northeast. The front elevation is constructed from cream-coloured sandstone with a stugged ashlar finish and polished dressings, while the rear and sides are of squared and snecked stugged rubble with stugged ashlar dressings. A base course, banded string course above the ground floor, and an eaves cornice with a blocking course are present, along with rusticated quoins and rounded arrises at ground floor level. First-floor windows feature chamfered reveals, and ashlar mullions are also incorporated.

The north-west (front) elevation has a central entrance bay with a round-arched, keystoned, and moulded doorpiece framed by moulded pilasters. Above this is a balustraded balcony supported by carved consoles, and a panelled door leading to a tiled vestibule. A single window is at first floor level in the central bay. To the right is a bay with a canted window (one central, three outer panes) and a balustraded parapet at ground floor; an advanced tripartite window with blocking course raised as a pediment is above at first floor. The bay to the left also features an advanced tripartite window at ground and first floor level, with the first-floor window having a balustraded balcony on carved consoles and a blocking course raised as before. A two-bay wing to the left has single windows at ground floor, and a pair of round-arched bipartite windows at first floor, which break the eaves within chip-carved, finialled gabled dormerheads.

To the left of the main house is a single-storey, rendered gabled garage with a rubble front and a bull’s-eye window in the gablehead.

The south-east (rear) elevation features a full-height canted window (one central, three outer panes) to the left bay, single windows in the central bay, and bipartite windows in the bay to the right. Two canted, corniced timber dormers are visible in the roof space (the one on the left being extended). The service wing has two single windows and one bipartite window at ground floor level, and first-floor windows breaking the eaves within a gabled dormerhead.

The south-west elevation includes a later door in the centre bay and at first-floor level, along with a large fire escape stair. A single window is at first floor to the right, and the wallhead has been raised with a blind arcade acting as a link between two corniced wallhead stacks. A box dormer is situated to the left. The north-east elevation presents a single-storey service wing with a wallhead stack and a half-piend roof at ground floor; the wallhead of the main house is raised as previously described, and a box dormer is to the right.

Most of the windows are timber sash and case, with plate glass glazing, although some four-pane windows are present at the rear of the service wing. The roof is covered with Scottish slate, and includes piend and platform sections, lead flashings, some octagonal cans, and moulded eaves gutters.

The interior was not inspected in 1992.

The property is enclosed by a tall rubble wall with semi-circular coping to the rear and sides, and a lower rubble wall with semi-circular coping to the front, with a cast-iron gate.