48 Queen Street, Edinburgh

This is a substantial, early 1790s classical house on Queen Street, Edinburgh, with alterations made in the early 19th century and restored in 1970 by Robert Hurd & Partners. It is a three-storey building with a basement and attic, forming part of a terrace and originally containing three bays. The front is finished in polished sandstone ashlar, with some replacement stones. The ground floor features square cut rustication, while a moulded cill course runs along the first floor. A mutuled cornice tops the building, accented by long and short quoins. The windows have moulded architraves and cornices on the first floor. A prominent stop-fluted doorpiece, with a fluted frieze, sits to the right, framing a tripartite doorway topped with a cornice that steps back over the door and a large semicircular fanlight detailed with metal decorative glazing. A pair of bowed dormers, slate-hung, project from the roof.

The rear elevation is of coursed rubble, with two bays. The right bay is three stories and attic in height and includes a later projecting closet tower. The left bay features a four-story semicircular bow with a conical roof. This bow has a pair of windows at ground level, and a Venetian window at both ground and first floor levels.

The windows throughout are timber sash and case in style, with 12 panes (16 panes to the dormers). The roof features ashlar coped mutual skews and dressed stone mutual stacks, with an additional stack on the rear bow. Grey slates finish the roof.

The interior is generally very fine and distinctive. The entrance lobby has an enriched ceiling and an arcaded screen with fluted pilasters and metal fanlights, leading to an inner hall and a further arcaded screen, before reaching the central stairwell. A curving cantilevered stair features round iron banisters, with an inventive strip including circular glazing lights enclosing the basement stair. A circular cupola incorporates very fine decorative plasterwork. The former dining room has stripped timberwork, a fluted pilastered recess, a panelled dado, a pilastered gesso chimneypiece, and a dentilled cornice. A rear left room has a later marble chimneypiece and a recess on the inner wall filled with an enriched timber press. The rear right room is bow-ended with a pilastered Venetian window, an enriched ceiling featuring an oval containing swags, and a gesso chimneypiece. The former drawing room on the first floor has a swagged frieze to the cornice, an oval neo-classical ceiling, a pair of corniced double doors, a panelled dado, and a gesso chimneypiece. Double doors connect this room to the rear left room, which has a fluted Ionic columned screen and a black marble chimneypiece. The rear right first floor room has a Venetian window with fluted pilasters in the bow, a gesso chimneypiece. The second-floor bow room also features a gesso chimneypiece.

The property is also accompanied by cast-iron spearhead railings and a pair of iron lamp standards that flank the steps.