8 Queen Street, Edinburgh

8 Queen Street, Edinburgh

A symmetrical 3-storey neo-classical house with basement and attic, designed by Robert Adam in 1770-71. The attic and roof were refurbished by David and John Bryce in 1876, and the building was restored by Simpson and Brown, Architects, in 1992.

The exterior is constructed of polished ashlar cream Craigleith sandstone. The ground floor features square cut rustication terminated by a band course containing a Vitruvian scroll. The entrance has a tripartite columnar doorpiece with stylised capitals and a fluted frieze with medallions, a panelled door with a modern timber fanlight (radiating semicircle within a rectangle), 4-pane sidelights, and a single step to a platt oversailing the basement. The first floor has a cill course and the building is crowned with a modillioned and dentilled cornice and solid coped parapet. The first floor windows have architrave and cornice, while the shorter second floor windows are architraved. The 5-bay front is fitted with 12-pane replacement timber sash and case windows with horns. The mansard roof has timber piend-roofed dormers to the lower section (remodelled 1992) and large 3-pane rooflights to the upper section in each bay, moulded hoppers, grey slates, ashlar coped skews, and patched ashlar stacks. Cast-iron railings enclose the basement area.

The entrance hall features a glazed timber inner porch (1992), an original ceiling with diamond pattern, central rosette and swagged husks, and a modern stone chimneypiece to Adam's design (1992). Glazed double doors with a consoled overdoor lead to the stair hall. The apsidal-ended dining room (now president's room) to the left retains Adam's original Bacchanalian frieze, with a timber chimneypiece (1992) to Adam's design echoing the frieze, a modern ceiling (1992) to Adam's design and colours, modern overdoors with dentilled cornice (1992), and a pair of curved doors in the apse. The study to the right has a timber chimneypiece (1992), a modern ceiling (1992) to Adam's design and colours, apparently original glazed mahogany presses flanking the fireplace, and a gib door to the passage. A parlour to the south-east contains a simple veined marble slip chimneypiece. Modern toilets occupy the south-west. The stair hall has consoled overdoors at the centre of each landing, a painted stone stair with plain square iron balusters, and a mahogany handrail that starts with a spiral and steps up at the final stair of each landing. A square panelled cupola with an egg and dart cornice crowns the stair. A cantilevered spiral stone service stair to the west starts at the vaulted basement and ascends to the attic.

The principal floor comprises a pair of drawing rooms to the north joined by double doors of circa 1825, with overdoors featuring cornices and honeysuckle frieze. Original ceilings with colours restored according to paint scrapes (1992), cornices and original marble chimneypieces to Adam's design have been reinstated in both rooms. The large drawing room (Cullen room) to the east has a rectangular ceiling with central ovals and griffons in the end compartments, and a chimneypiece with swagged husks. The small drawing room (Davidson room) to the west features a square ceiling with a rosette in a fanned circle at the centre and quadrant corners decorated with four roundels painted with cherubs, and a consoled and fluted chimneypiece. The south-east bedroom (Duncan room) has a timber chimneypiece (1992) made to an alternative Adam design for the dining room. A projecting semi-octagonal former dressing room, now kitchen, serves as a link to the south-west bedroom (Gregory room), which retains a grey veined marble chimneypiece of circa 1840, with the shadow of former wallpaper concealed by a pier glass. The west window now links to the new library corridor (see No 9). Substantial second floor rooms contain simple moulded original stone chimneypieces, as do the attic rooms, with a large room created to the east. Cornices run throughout all rooms, with the most elaborate ones in the principal rooms. Chair rails are fitted to the ground and first floor rooms.