Castleview, 402-404 Ferry Road, Edinburgh

Castleview, 402-404 Ferry Road, Edinburgh

A Scottish baronial villa built circa 1870 and extended in 1938 by Thomas McCrae, subsequently converted to two flats in the mid-twentieth century. The building comprises a two-storey and attic main body with an L-plan formed by a rear and north-facing wing, plus a single-storey west extension. The design is asymmetrical and heavily characterised by crowstepped gables and bartizans.

The main structure is constructed in coursed stugged sandstone with droved ashlar dressings to the principal elevations. The rear and north-facing wing exhibits less finely coursed stonework, while the extension is entirely of ashlar. Windows are architraved throughout, with moulded surrounds to the principal elevations and long and short surrounds to the rear wing. The original building features angle quoins.

The south (entrance) elevation is the principal façade. A former main entrance is set within a central recessed bay, approached by a single step to a semi-circular-headed, architraved doorway with fanlight. To the left, a bay steps forward in the form of a towerhouse with a raised roof level and crowstepped gables positioned at right angles on either side. A balustraded parapet fronts this feature, terminated at the corners by bartizans with ball-finalled conical stone roofs; a gabled dormer sits between these. To the right, a bay projects slightly further forward, containing a two-storey three-light canted window beneath a heavily coped crowstepped gable topped with a thistle finial. The single-storey ashlar extension to the far left features a deep parapet with a band course beneath, aligned with a matching band course on the main body. A central three-light canted window with flanking single lights occupies this elevation.

The west elevation shows a single-storey extension projecting from the west wing, accessed via steps up to a Tudor-arched doorway with architraved and pulvinated cornice. Above this doorway sits a datestone inscribed 1938 with initials. A panelled timber door with a decorative iron thistle latch handle provides entry. A large three-light window stands to the right. Behind the extension, a heavily coped crowstepped gable of the main body rises, featuring a round-arched window set in the gablehead. A bartizan with conical stone roof and thistle finial projects at first-floor level to the left. The west elevation of the rear north wing contains a single first-floor window with a curved apron bearing a thistle motif; an entrance to the ground floor may have been inserted where a window once stood. A modern glazed conservatory occupies the re-entrant angle over a small coursed sandstone ground-floor extension dating to 1938.

The north elevation reveals the rear wing projecting to the left, with a small coursed rubble lean-to extension and a central blocked entrance. Two windows light the first floor of this extension. The main body of the house steps back to the right; a small ground-floor extension (now largely obscured by the modern conservatory) contains two windows, and a single window with two small attic windows set within the eaves light the first floor. A bartizan projects to the right at first-floor level. A single-storey extension adjoins to the right at the base of the bartizan via a short half-segmental-arched linking section set at an angle, with a single window to the centre.

The east elevation begins with a blank bay to the left. The rear wing projects slightly to the right, with a first-floor entrance accessed via a flight of stone steps with wrought-iron handrail. A two-leaf panelled door with a nine-pane rectangular fanlight provides access. A small window stands to the right, with a broad window having a concrete surround positioned below the steps. A single window lights the ground floor to the far right.

Windows throughout the building are predominantly two-pane and four-pane timber sash and case windows with border glazing. Roofs are finished in grey slate, mostly gabled, with the rear north wing having a piended roof. Gablehead stacks stand to the east and west of the main body, with a ridge stack at the change in roof level. Two wallhead chimneys serve the rear wing. All stacks are coped with round cans, some of barley-sugar design. Rainwater goods are predominantly PVCu.

The interior, partially inspected in 1991, has remained largely unaltered since conversion to flats, with the upstairs flat retaining much of its original character.

Boundary walls of coursed sandstone rubble with rounded coping line the south and west boundaries. The walls are lower in height immediately south of the house, where coping and gatepost margins are formed of squared sandstone blocks.