Salvation Army Women's Hostel, Grassmarket, Edinburgh

The Salvation Army Women's Hostel, designed by John Hamilton of Glasgow in 1910, is a four-storey, five-bay building located in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Originally a women's hostel, it now serves as an annex of the Edinburgh College of Art. The building features Art Nouveau details and has a corner tower with an ogee roof topped with a finial. It is constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone, with a cream and grey color scheme at the ground level and red above the ground floor, along with polished stone dressings. The west elevation is made of brick, while the rear is finished in white-glazed brick.

On the north elevation, there is a central two-leaf timber panelled door set within a small-pane glazed screen, surrounded by a moulded frame and topped with a segmental pediment that features attractive Art Nouveau lettering. Flanking the door are pilaster strips that rise to the third floor, where a stylised flat pediment crowns the window. A pedimented dormer breaks the eaves on the outer right, and a polygonal corner tower is located on the outer left, corniced at the second floor and corbelled out above a chamfered corner.

The east elevation includes a recessed bay on the outer left, which adjoins the Portsburgh Chapel. Here, a timber panelled door is accompanied by a small-pane glazed fanlight, with a stylised flat pediment above that breaks the eaves. To the right, there are four regularly spaced bays featuring small-pane glazing above and two-light casements below, all in timber sash and case windows. The roof is covered in greenish-grey slates, and there are cast-iron downpipes with decorative hoppers. The building also features tall corniced stacks with circular cans at the wallhead on the east side and a smaller stack on the west gablehead.