10 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh

10 Regent Terrace is a townhouse built between 1826 and 1833, designed by William Playfair. It is part of a long terrace of 34 classical townhouses, originally two storeys with an attic and basement, though many have later additions of a third storey. The terrace includes two three-storey pavilions that are 18 bays wide, with projecting three-bay sections at each end (numbered 11-16 and 23-28). The terrace steps down to follow the slope of the road.

The exterior uses droved, painted ashlar for the basement, polished ashlar for the upper floors, and coursed, squared rubble with dressed margins on the rear elevation. The principal elevation features a base course, dividing bands between the basement and ground floor, and between the ground and first floors, and an eaves cornice and blocking course. A continuous cast-iron trellis balcony with a Greek key border runs along the first floor. A doorpiece is formed of fluted attached Greek Doric columns. Fenestration is regular; architraved windows are on the ground and first floors with panelled aprons to the ground floor; the rear elevation has predominantly regular fenestration.

The south-east (principal) elevation is a three-storey and basement design. The basement has four bays, with a timber panelled door and three-light fanlight in the right-hand bay. Steps with a covering platt lead to a two-leaf timber-panelled door with a triple-circle glazed letterbox fanlight in the ground floor’s right-hand bay.

The north-west (rear) elevation has four bays and a full-height wing to the left. A piend-roofed single-storey extension with a glazed apex is set into the ground floor of the wing.

Most windows have four panes of glass to the front, 12 panes to the rear and basement, and 16 panes on the first floor of the right-hand bays. The windows are predominantly timber sash and case. The roof is an M-roof with a central valley, covered with graded grey slate, stone skews, and skewputts. Corniced mutual ridge stacks are present at the east and west, preceded by individual octagonal flues on the east side; a gablehead stack is on the rear wing, with predominantly circular cans visible. A cast-iron downpipe with an ornamental hopper is also present on the front elevation.

Stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars, spear-head finials, and a distinctive circled border lines the front of the building, edging the basement recess and platt. Random rubble boundary walls with flat coping enclose the rear garden.

The interior of the ground floor includes an ornate lobby with compartmented ceilings, good plasterwork, a 19th-century painted frieze, a pilastered timber screen with a partly glazed door, a margin light with painted glass, and a plaque. The former drawing room on the first floor also has good plasterwork and a double pilastered and corniced doorpiece, with further plasterwork throughout the floor. Stone cantilevered stairs have ornate cast-iron balusters.