27 Polwarth Terrace, Edinburgh

27 Polwarth Terrace is a large, asymmetrical-plan Gothic villa built in 1858 by R Thornton Shiells and re-erected in 1899 from 2 Bruntsfield Terrace. The villa features two stories and an attic, constructed from cream sandstone with squared and snecked rubble, dressed ashlar dressings, and reddish pointing. It has a base course, chamfered reveals, a stepped cill course at the first floor, ashlar mullions, and crowstepped gables.

The northwest (front) elevation has four bays, with an advanced gabled bay to the left that includes gabletted crowstepps and a two-storey canted window with a fishscale bellcast roof. There is a round-arched canopied ashlar entrance porch in the re-entrant angle to the bay left of centre, featuring a lean-to stone slated roof, short pedestaled baluster columns with bulbous bases, and elaborately carved foliate shafts and capitals. The spandrels have foliage carving, and there is a trefoiled arch on the return. The doorpiece has bolection moulding, with panelled outer and inner doors, and a chequered vestibule of black and white marble. The fanlight and inner door have honeycomb leaded panes. To the right of centre, there is a bipartite window at ground floor with a basket-arched hoodmould and foliate label-stops. At the first floor, the centre bays have single windows breaking the eaves in crocketted and finialled gabled dormerheads, with inset pointed-arch panels, one dated 1858. The corner bay to the outer right features a corbelled octagonal turret on an octagonal shaft, with a single window to the northwest and southwest, and a bellcast French pavilion roof of banded fishscale slating and cast-iron brattishing. There is an L-plan service wing to the right.

The southeast (rear) elevation has a gabled bay to the right with crowsteps and a wallhead stack, a large window at ground floor with timber mullions, a bipartite window at first floor, and a small single window in the gablehead. To the left, there are three single windows at ground floor, two windows at first floor, and two windows at second floor breaking the eaves, along with a lower two-storey service wing.