33 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

33 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh

This is a Grade A townhouse forming part of an extremely long 121-bay palace front terrace designed by William Playfair between 1820 and 1824. Number 33 itself was built between 1854 and 1859.

The terrace presents a unified architectural composition with an arched and rusticated ground floor. At its centre rises a 3-storey section with attic punctuated by three 3-storey Corinthian colonnaded pavilions. Flanking sections to left and right comprise 3-storey balustraded sections leading to 3-storey sections with 3-storey and attic Ionic colonnaded pavilions. Two-storey balustraded sections occupy the outer edges. All houses have basements.

The facades employ painted droved ashlar to the basement; V-chamfered rustication to the ground floor; and polished ashlar to the upper floors. The rear elevation is predominantly coursed squared rubble with dressed margins. A series of regular band courses, dividing bands, and impost courses articulate the principal elevation between storeys, with a narrow band course at first floor level broken only by windows to each bay.

The principal north elevation of Number 33 comprises three bays. The left and centre bays rise to three storeys with basement and attic, while the right bay is two storeys with basement and attic. To the basement, windows serve the left and right bays, with a timber-panelled door featuring a three-light fanlight in the centre bay, all within segmentally-headed openings. The ground floor to the right bay contains steps and a platform with unsympathetic modern surfacing that overarch the basement recess, leading to a timber-panelled door with flanking margin lights and segmental fanlight. To the upper floors of the right bay, an unbroken band course sits above the first floor windows, with an eaves cornice and balustraded parapet above. A dormer window lights the roof to each bay. The left and centre bays feature giant attached Ionic columns at first floor level dividing the bays and supporting an entablature between the second and attic floors. Pilasters divide the attic floor, with an eaves cornice and blocking course completing the composition.

The south rear elevation is four bays, with three storeys and basement to the left bays, and three storeys, basement and attic to the right bays. A band course divides the ground and first floors, with a cornice and band course between the second and attic floors, an eaves cornice, and blocking course above.

Glazing is predominantly 12-pane throughout, with 4-pane glazing to the ground floor of the front elevation and 6-pane glazing to the first, second and attic floors of the front elevation and attic floor of the rear elevation. Windows are predominantly timber sash and case. The roof is M-shaped with central valleys and a mansard to the right bay of the front elevation, covered in graded grey slate with stone skews and skewputts. Chimneys include a non-original mutual ridge stack to the west, a gable-head stack at the centre, and a mutual ridge stack to the east, predominantly fitted with circular cans.

To the front, stone coping topped with cast-iron railings featuring dog bars, spear-head finials and a distinctive circled border edges the basement recess and platform. A wrought-iron lamp standard stands to the left of the platform. The rear boundary is marked by a random rubble wall with predominantly flat coping forming the garden boundary.

The interior is now subdivided into flats. The ground floor lobby contains a round-headed niche to the right with good plasterwork and a compartmented ceiling. A pilastered and corniced timber-panelled and glazed screen marks the division between the lobby and inner hall. The former dining room retains good plasterwork, as does a rear apsidal-ended room. The remainder of the ground floor has been much altered. The stairs and landings feature a large skylight above the stairs with a coffered cavetto surround, good plasterwork to the landings, and cast-iron balusters.