48 Manor Place, Edinburgh

50 and 52 Manor Place in Edinburgh are a pair of townhouses likely designed by John Lessels between 1872 and 1892. This extensive terrace features a unified façade with three stories, attics, and basements, designed in an astylar Renaissance style. The main entrance leads to flats with a common stair behind, and there are later additions to the attic.

The buildings include a four-bay advanced corner block to the north, which has a recessed, curved end bay and a three-bay return to Rothesay Terrace. The basement area features some vaulted cellars and retaining walls. The exterior is made of sandstone ashlar, with droved ashlar used for the basement and channelled ashlar for the ground floor. The entrance platts oversail the basement, and there is a base course at the ground floor level. A banded cill course is present at the first floor, along with a string course between the windows at the corner block. The second floor also features a banded cill course and bracketed windows in the center. The corniced eaves course is complemented by a stepped and balustraded parapet.

The entrance doors are timber, consisting of four panels with corniced and bracketed round arched doorways, and plain fanlights at the center. The first floor has tripartite windows that are architraved, bracketed, and pedimented, with some blind windows on the advanced corner block. There are later rectangular dormers added to Nos. 50 and 52, while the corner block features segmental arched dormers and a prominent corniced wallhead chimney stack that includes an integrated window. Cast-iron balconies with scrolled brackets adorn the first-floor windows.

The windows predominantly consist of plate glass in timber sash and case. The roof has a double pitch M-section covered with grey slates, and there are corniced ashlar gable, ridge, and wallhead stacks fitted with modern clay cans. Additionally, cast-iron railings sit atop sandstone coping stone edging the basement recess to the street, along with cast-iron rainwater goods.

Inside, the buildings are characterized by a highly decorative classical scheme with detailed cornicing throughout the ground and first floors. They were converted for office and residential use in 2008.