51 Queen Street, Edinburgh

51 Queen Street in Edinburgh is a former classical house built around 1790, with later alterations. It is a three-storey building with a basement and attic, featuring three bays. The exterior is made of Craigleith sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. The ground floor has channelled rustication, while the first floor has a moulded cill course and a mutulated cornice. The building has long and short quoins and regular fenestration. The windows have moulded architraves, although the cornices have been removed at the first floor. To the right, there is a stop-fluted pilastered doorpiece with a fluted frieze, which contains a pilastered tripartite doorway topped with a cornice that steps back over the door and features a large semicircular decorative metal fanlight. A broad bowed dormer, hung with slate, is located to the left.

The rear elevation is constructed of coursed rubble and has two bays, with a projecting closet at the ground floor and a large tripartite piend-roofed dormer to the right. The windows are timber sash and case, with 12 panes for the main windows and 3 panes for the second floor. The building has ashlar coped mutual skews, dressed stone mutual stacks (rendered to the west), and is covered with grey slates.

Inside, the hall features an arcaded screen leading to the stairwell, which has a curving cantilevered stair with round iron banisters. The stair above the first floor has been sealed, and a circular cupola with decorative plasterwork remains in the flat above, which is accessed from No 50. The former dining room has an apsidal end, a panelled dado, and a 19th-century egg and dart cornice. The rear left room contains a recess on the inner wall that has been filled with a press. On the first floor, the former drawing room retains a cornice similar to that of the dining room, although all chimneypieces are missing.

The property also features cast-iron spearhead railings, with a pair of iron lamp standards flanking the steps, although the globes are missing.