12 Duncan Street, Edinburgh

12 Duncan Street in Edinburgh is a classical office building designed by Harry Ramsay Taylor of Cousin, Ormiston and Taylor between 1909 and 1910, which incorporates an early 19th century portico by Thomas Hamilton. The building is two storeys high and features 14 bays arranged symmetrically, with a central prostyle portico and advanced terminal pavilions. It is constructed from cream sandstone ashlar, with a channelled ground floor, a base course, and a dividing band course connecting the linking blocks. The design includes a cornice above the ground floor windows and pilaster quoins at the first floor of the terminal pavilions, along with an eaves course and cornice.

The north entrance elevation showcases a full-height, three-bay portico with paired Corinthian columns, stylized at the ground, strip pilasters, and dentilled eaves beneath the pediment. The central doorway features a two-leaf panelled door with a plate glass fanlight above. There is a single window on the first floor above the doorway, and additional windows on both floors in the bays to the left and right. The flanking five-bay linking blocks have regular fenestration, with single windows at the ground floor of the pavilions and Venetian windows on the first floor above.

The east elevation consists of three bays with regular fenestration at the ground floor, while pilasters flank blind windows with blank panels above on the first floor. The west elevation, facing South Gray Street, has four bays, featuring a round-arched boarded timber doorway to the outer right, a single window on the first floor above, and regular fenestration in the remaining bays, with incised panels above the first-floor windows. The building has 12-pane timber sash and case windows, grey slate piended roofs on the pavilion blocks, flat roofs elsewhere, and coped, shouldered wallhead stacks with square, moulded cans.

The interior was not seen in 1996. The property is enclosed by a high, coped, rubble boundary wall along Duncan Street.