27 Polwarth Terrace, Edinburgh

R Thornton Shiells, 1858, re-erected 1899 from 2 Bruntsfield Terrace. Large 2-storey and attic asymmetrical-plan gothic detailed villa; cream sandstone, squared and snecked rubble with dressed ashlar dressings and reddish pointing; base course; chamfered reveals; stepped cill course at 1st floor; ashlar mullions; crowstepped gables.

NW (FRONT) ELEVATION: 4-bay; advanced gabled bay to left with gabletted crowstepps, 2-storey canted window (1-2-1) off-set at 1st floor with fishscale bellcast roof; round-arched canopied ashlar entrance porch in re-entrant angle to bay left of centre with lean-to stone slated roof, short pedestaled baluster columns with bulbous bases and elaborately carved foliate shafts and capitals, foliage carving to spandrels, trefoiled arch on return, doorpiece with bolection moulding, panelled outer and inner doors, chequered vestibule of black and white marble, honeycomb leaded panes to fanlight and inner door; bipartite window at ground floor to right of centre with basket-arched hoodmould and foliate label-stops; at 1st floor to centre bays single windows breaking eaves in crocketted and finialled gabled dormerheads, inset pointed-arch panels (right dated 1858); corner bay to outer right with corbelled octagonal turret on octagonal shaft, single window to NW and SW, bellcast French pavilion roof of banded fishscale slating and cast-iron brattishing. L-plan service wing to right.

SE (REAR) ELEVATION: gabled bay to right with crowsteps and wallhead stack, large window at ground floor with timber mullions, bipartite window at 1st floor, small single window in gablehead; 3 single windows at ground floor to left, 2 windows at 1st floor, 2 windows at 2nd floor breaking eaves; lower 2-storey service wing to left. SW ELEVATION: M