3 Chalmers Crescent, Edinburgh

3 Chalmers Crescent in Edinburgh is a two-storey, three-bay villa built around 1865, almost certainly by architect R Thornton Shiells. The villa features a lower two-storey wing that is recessed to the outer left and is subdivided. The exterior is constructed of stugged and snecked ashlar stone, with polished window dressings that have droved margins and chamfered reveals. The building also has stop-chamfered quoins and a dividing band of diamond-pattern in contrasting sandstones.

The entrance elevation showcases a steeply pitched gabled timber porch at the center, which has an encaustic tiled floor and is supported by four detached piers with shaped rafters. The porch is topped with a grey slate roof that includes bands of green fishscale slates. The door surround is shouldered and architraved, leading to a panelled door with a plate glass fanlight above. There is a tripartite vestibule door featuring etched glass panels. On the ground floor, there are bipartite windows flanking the center, each with disengaged column-mullions and foliate capitals, operating behind 4-pane sash and case windows. A similar bipartite window breaks the eaves in a piend-roofed dormer at the first floor center, with additional single windows breaking the eaves in the bays.

The lower recessed bay on the outer left has a piended roof and a modern single-storey porch at the re-entrant angle, along with a single first-floor window breaking the eaves.

The north elevation is blank, as it is abutted by a modern garage. The south elevation features a secondary entrance. The west elevation includes a single-storey piend-roofed service wing that projects to the outer left, with irregular fenestration. There is a single window breaking the eaves in a piend-roofed dormer to the right, a two-storey advanced bay to the outer right, and a secondary entrance at ground level with a window above that also breaks the eaves.

The villa has 4-pane sash and case windows, along with two fixed pane windows with borders on the west side. The roof is grey slate with a piended design and lead flashing. There are two wallhead stacks with sawtooth coping on the south side, and single wallhead stacks on the north and west sides, with some original rainwater goods still in place.

The interior was not seen in 1990. The property is enclosed by high mutual boundary walls and has a low boundary wall facing the street. There is also a single-storey garage attached to the north side of the villa.