58 Bernard Street, Edinburgh

58 Bernard Street, Edinburgh

A substantial four-storey Baronial corner tenement designed by J Anderson Hamilton and dated 1865. The building occupies a prominent corner site with shops at ground floor level. The exterior is constructed in cream sandstone with a polished ashlar ground floor, while the upper storeys are finished in squared and snecked rubble with polished and stugged ashlar dressings. A slender corner spire rises prominently from the corner tower, though this was replaced during the 1980s.

The building's distinctive architectural features include a base course and string courses above ground level, with string courses stepping over features and irregular openings. Ground floor openings have roll-moulded reveals, whilst openings above are stop-chamfered. Both ground and first floor openings are segmental-arched, and third floor windows break into the eaves within gableheads. Ashlar mullions appear throughout.

The west elevation facing Shore comprises two bays with a curved corner bay to the right. The curved corner bay contains a doorway, with a broad shop window and rectangular window in the left bay. At first floor the corner bay features a single window, whilst the second floor has a window with carved cresting to its lintel, framed by corbelled projections. These rise to a square corner tower with a tripartite window and machicolated parapet at third floor level. Corbelled corner bartizans with water spouts and cross-arrowslit windows project from this tower, with a central clock face below. A tall octagonal spire crowns the composition, topped with a modern louvred bellcote and pyramidal cap. The bay to the left features a corbelled oriel at first floor with narrow sidelights set off-centre to the left, a corbelled frieze and cornice, a single window at second floor, and a segmental-arched bipartite window at third floor. This is topped by a crowstepped gable with fleur-de-lis finial and monogrammed pediment.

The Bernard Street elevation to the south extends across eleven bays excluding the corner bay. At its centre is a broad moulded arch containing paired shouldered-arch doorways, one leading to a pend to the right, with a Leith motto inscribed in the tympanum. Above this is a tall stepped tripartite stair window at first floor with angled cills, followed by a tall segmental-arched stair window with central timber mullions and angled cill at second floor, framed by canon spouts and breaking into a French pavilion roof with triangular ventilators.

Two bays to the left of centre contain doorways at ground floor with single windows above at each storey. The third floor has one bargeboarded and one crowstepped gable with thistle finial and blank armorial panel. The next bay contains a shop window at ground floor and a single window above at first floor with a stepped hoodmould. Above this is an ashlar wallhead stack corbelled at second floor with a Leith motto in a recessed panel, shouldered above the eaves and decorated with barley-sugar nook-shafts.

The outer bays feature single windows at first and second floors. At third floor, the left has a bipartite window within a crowstepped and finialled gable with monogrammed pediment, whilst the right has a crowstepped dormerhead with thistle finial. The bay to the right of centre contains a shop window at ground floor and bipartite windows above, segmental-arched at third floor with rolled detail to the gable skews and a carved pointed-arched panel to the gablehead. The next bay has single windows and a bargeboarded dormerhead with kingpost.

To the right is a doorway at ground floor with a shouldered ashlar wallhead stack above rising from griffin corbels framing a monogram, with the date at second floor level. This stack is corbelled at third floor with a deep-set segmental-arched window, monogram and hoodmould above, and features a grooved stack with spiral nook-shafts. The adjacent bay contains single windows with a bargeboarded dormerhead with kingpost. The final bay to the outer right has bipartite windows, segmental-arched at third floor with rolled detail and carved pointed-arch panel to the gablehead.

The north rear elevation displays a crowstepped gabled bay with an apex stack to the outer right. Single windows occur throughout, with third floor windows breaking into gabled dormerheads. Tall rendered wallhead stacks rise between the dormerheads.

The ground floor shop windows are glazed with round-arched timber bipartites containing roundels in their spandrels. Timber sash and case windows with thin astragals are found throughout, predominantly with four-pane lower sashes and two-pane upper sashes, though some feature plate glass glazing. Eight-pane windows appear to the rear. The roof is slate with metal flashings and is punctuated by seven wallhead stacks plus the apex stack and a mutual stack mentioned above. Corbelled skewputts, some gabletted, meet the roof line, whilst ashlar skews feature saw-tooth, crowstepped or roll-detail treatment as described above. Moulded eaves gutters with gargoyle gutterheads and ornamental gutter brackets complete the external details.

The interior was not seen at the time of survey in 1993.