Head Gardener's Cottage, East Gate, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

Head Gardener's Cottage, located at the East Gate of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, dates from around 1840. This two-storey cottage features a cruciform plan with prominent gables at the north and south ends. The north elevation includes a porch with a pointed-arch doorway, deep blocked eaves, and corniced octagonal chimney stacks. The exterior is constructed from snecked sandstone rubble, with ashlar detailing on the porch and window surrounds, and a base course. The building has long and short undressed quoins, raised and chamfered window margins, stone canopies above the first-floor windows under the gables, and hoodmoulds over the ground floor gable windows. The windows are arranged irregularly.

On the north (entrance) elevation, there is an advanced central gabled porch with a later two-leaf timber boarded door set in a stop-chamfered pointed-arch opening. Above this is a stone-mullioned bipartite window with a small canopy. Narrow windows flank the porch on the ground floor. The south (garden) elevation features a tripartite mullioned window at the center on the ground floor, with a bipartite mullioned window above it. To the right of the gable, there is a canopied window at ground level and a bipartite window above. A non-traditional timber boarded back door is located to the outer right.

The east and west side elevations both have a tripartite window at ground level on the east side and a bipartite window above it. The west side has a modern sliding door and a canopied window above. The cottage has non-traditional uPVC windows and corniced octagonal stacks that rise from square bases, topped with large graded grey slates.

The interior was not seen in 2003, but the Facilities Manager reported that all original doors and fireplaces had been removed. The property is enclosed by a coped, snecked rubble boundary wall to the east.