Leith Nautical College, Macdonald House, 104, 106 Commercial Street, Edinburgh

William C Laidlaw, 1903; extended 1926, 1931 and 1960s; converted to offices 1981, Gordon and Latimer. Symmetrical 2-storey and attic 3-bay English Baroque villa with single bay addition to E. Cream ashlar sandstone; squared snecked and bull-faced to rear.

S (COMMERCIAL STREET) ELEVATION: original villa with base course, corniced to ground floor, moulded cill course to 1st floor and mutuled cornice with blocking course; long and short quoins. 3 steps to projecting doorpiece; broad 2-leaf panelled door with semi-circular leaded fanlight, moulded architrave, acanthus keystone and cartouches in spandrels; flanked by paired engaged Ionic columns on pedestals, supporting broken pediment with large cartouche at centre (inscribed MACDONALD HOUSE). 3 tall windows to flanking bays at ground. Venetian windows to 1st floor bays, outer ones with brackets at centre; plaques between bays. Corniced box dormers; bipartite at centre, tripartite to outer bays. Single bay extension to right detailed as above (no quoins), with full ashlar attic storey having 4 round-headed windows in set-in panel at centre; corniced tablet above parapet with legend LEITH NAUTICAL COLLEGE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT ERECTED 1926. Modern 2-storey glazed brick extension to right. Adjoins cooperage to left.

N ELEVATION: 2-storey and attic 3-bay. Centre and left bays obscured by modern breeze block addition at ground. Centre bay with stair windows and raised wallhead forming square watchtower with glazed ogee-roofed timber cupola behind central stack. Right bay with bipartite and single windows to both floors; left bay with tripartite window to 1st floor. Corniced tripartite box-dormers abutt watchtower.

Original glazing; timber windows with plate glass lower panels and multi-pane upper panels. Piend and platform roof with railings around viewing platform; grey slates. Corniced ashlar stack to W. Original cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: plaster corniced and consoled vestibule. Classrooms partitioned and stained glass, cornices and figurines on stair inserted circa 1978-9.

FRONT WALLS AND RAILINGS: dwarf saddleback-coped ashlar walls flank doorpiece with origianl decorative wrought-iron railings.