42-44 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh

42-44 Spylaw Road is a villa built around 1873, likely by F T Pilkington. It is a two-storey and attic, three-bay rectangular-plan building with a single-storey rear wing. The front is made of cream sandstone ashlar, while the rear and sides are constructed from squared and snecked stugged rubble, featuring stugged ashlar dressings. The villa has a base course, a banded caps course at the ground floor, a banded cill course at the first floor, an eaves cornice, stopped mouldings to reveals, and ashlar mullions.

On the southeast (front) elevation, there is an open recessed angle porch, which has been infilled and glazed, supported by substantial square piers with floral and Thomsonesque carvings on the sizable capitals. This porch extends to a clasp frieze decorated with anthemions. Above, there is a single window at the first floor and a separate finialled French pavilion roof on the corner bay. The center bay features a corniced bipartite window at the ground floor, with a center mullion that has a carved patera, and two single windows at the first floor above. A large canted timber dormer addition is present on the roof. The bay to the right has a canted window (1-2-1) at the ground floor and an off-set canted window (1-3-1) at the first floor, flanked by scrolls. The mullions here also have carved paterae, and there is a semi-circular moulded pediment with an anthemion finial and a half-French pavilion roof.

The northwest (rear) elevation includes a single-storey extension with a piend and platform roof on the left, and three single windows at the ground floor on the right. Above, there are four single windows at the first floor, along with two shouldered wallhead stacks.

On the southwest elevation, there is a glazed-in porch to the right and large single-storey garage extensions with dormer windows to the left. The entrance door is located to the left of center, with a bipartite window above at the first floor. There are also single windows at the ground and first floors to the right, along with a wallhead stack to the left.

The northeast elevation features a central door with three single windows to the right, and bipartite windows in the left and center bays at the first floor.

The villa has timber sash and case windows with plate glass glazing, a Scottish slate piend and platform roof with lead flashings, and three wallhead stacks along with one central stack. The eaves gutters are moulded.

The property is enclosed by a tall rubble boundary wall, which includes gatepiers with diamond coping. The interior was not seen in 1992.